How to Master the Spoken Word / Designed as a Self-Instructor for all who would Excel in the Art of Public Speaking

by Edwin Gordon Lawrence

CHAPTER VII

THE GRECIAN ORATORS

what constituted their art

When you shall say, “As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land and let learning and romantic expectation go, until a more convenient season”; then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history, and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson: Dartmouth Address

If a man would become a truly great orator, he must put aside all mere selfish desires and heed only the call of the best that is in him. He must have visions, and realize them; he must act according to his own understanding, and not become the pliant tool of another, be that other a political boss, a political machine, or an unholy ambition; he must be himself, and refuse to echo the thoughts of others; and, as a foundation upon which all these virtues are to be built, must be the one great virtue of industry.

Through all climes and in all ages men have achieved eminence as orators by persevering efforts only, and while, at times, an orator, full-fledged and ready for the fray, has burst into the list and played his part upon the stage of action, such occurrences have been so rare as to make them but examples of the exception that proves the rule. Therefore, let him who would become proficient in the art of speech make up his mind to labor in order to attain that proficiency.

At the same time, we should remember that this labor need not necessarily be hard, need not be what is termed laborious, because the main requisite is that we should not interfere with nature in her work. It is perfectly natural for man to breathe properly, and yet how few do so; it is natural for man to speak, and yet how few speak properly! If we aim to remove the defects or errors that interfere with Nature doing properly her assigned task, we need not worry but that she will perform it. Take up the work of becoming a public speaker because you love the art of oratory, labor at it because you desire to accomplish it, and it will submit to you because all arts love to be mastered.

The history of oratory is a history of the world, just as the history of a great central character is an epitome of the history of his time, and as it is best to study the lives of the makers of history in order to understand the events of history, so it is best to examine the orators in order that we may learn of oratory.

In ancient times oratory was considered the art of arts because it embraced all other arts and was therefore the most difficult of achievements. Positions of honor and renown were bestowed upon those who were capable of giving fitting expression to their thoughts in public. Poets sang the praises of orators and made them the heroes of their songs. The psalmists and prophets are but types of the orator, and the actor of today is the outcome of the player of old who was more a speaker than he was an actor.

Every citizen, at one time, was his own lawyer, spoke in his own defense, and advocated his own cause. Then came the era of the speech writers, who prepared the matter for the citizen to deliver; and finally, the professional advocate of today who appears in behalf of his client and acts and speaks for him.

Let us consider the productions of the orators of that marvellous period in the world’s history which dates from 500 to 300 years previous to the coming of Christ; and in doing so, let us not forget that they are all translations into a foreign tongue, and that in their transition from one language into another they have lost much of their force and beauty. Another thing to bear in mind is that an oration does not read as it sounds. It lacks the magnetism of the living speaker, the presence of the assembled multitude, the concern in the subject, and the gravity of the interest at stake, to lend a completeness to the words and to impregnate them with the expression that life alone possesses, turning the dead words into living thoughts. Here, in these orations, we possess the mere bodies—mummies, they might well be termed—the spirit having departed ages ago; but by the influence of the imaginative mind of the reader they may be compelled to assume some semblance of their former greatness.

The best way of judging of the power of orators, and the influence of oratory, is to study the effect they had on the subjects with which they dealt, the audiences they addressed, and on posterity, which looks with an unprejudiced eye. All great orations have not accomplished the purposes for which they were uttered, but they have all had a decided influence on shaping the thoughts of man and directing his actions many years after the orators who uttered the words have passed back in to the elements whence they came. Demosthenes did not succeed in saving his loved Athens from the clutches of Philip, but his burning words in behalf of liberty have stirred the hearts of men in other lands and other ages and caused them to battle in behalf of the principles for which the ancient Grecian spoke; Edmund Burke and the Earl of Chatham did not succeed in turning Lord North from his determination to subdue the colonies of North America by force of arms, but their noble speeches inspired their brother Whigs in America to rush to arms and sacrifice their all in the struggle for independence; Abraham Lincoln, in his debate with Stephen A. Douglas, did not prevail on the electorate of the State of Illinois to return legislators who would elect him to the United States Senate, but his clear reasoning and masterful presentation of facts in that famous debate drew the attention of the nation to him and contributed much toward making him President of the United States. Oratory cannot fail in ultimately accomplishing its object, although it may not accomplish the specific object that the speaker had in mind at the time of uttering the oration, because truth must always ultimately triumph, and real oratory is always truth.

Oratory requires a large theme. Men cannot grow eloquent over a ship subsidy; they may rhetorically wave the flag of their country and claim the land will go to ruin unless the subsidy is granted, but there can be no genuine enthusiasm, no eloquence, over such a cause. When Henry Clay declared that the American flag should be honored wherever it floated, that its folds should protect its citizens on sea as well as on land, he had a theme of such magnitude that was able to move his country to take up arms in defense of the doctrine he espoused. When Lincoln started on his mission to preserve the Union, he held a tremendous question in hand—the question whether government by the people should pass from the earth—and this question brought as a response the immortal Gettysburg Address. William H. Grady, when speaking to the North on the subject of the New South, had a theme of vast importance—the theme of a reunited country. Theodore Roosevelt, in adopting “Conservation of Natural Wealth” as his subject, brought to the minds of his countrymen a truth to which they had blindly closed their eyes since the settlement of the Western Hemisphere. These are subjects upon which, if the man is prepared, he can grow eloquent; and as soon as the people seriously consider questions of moment to themselves and their posterity, men will come forward who are able to discuss such questions with eloquence that will equal that of the past. Oratory is not dead, nor is it sleeping; it is merely awaiting the sound of the voice it knows to cause it to come forth. It is no use calling to it in a foreign tongue—it must be spoken to in the voice of truth. Right, liberty, justice, the rights of man to enjoy the blessings of life—these are themes that will cause eloquence to become once more the art of arts.

Examples of Grecian Oratory[1]

For the benefit of the student of oratory, specimen orations are here given of ten of the most famous Grecian orators. Short biographical and other notes accompany each selection, as guides to the student regarding the careers of the orators and the circumstances under which the orations were delivered.

antiphon

Antiphon, the oldest of the ten Attic orators, and founder of Grecian political oratory, was the first to systematize the rules and principles for the guidance of public speakers. He was born at Rhamnus, Attica, about 480 b. c., and, because of his activity in establishing the oligarchy of the Four Hundred, was executed at Athens in 411 b. c., after a change had taken place in the government. He was noted for his readiness in debate, and gained great renown by composing orations by which many accused of capital offenses defended themselves.

The following oration was composed by Antiphon for a man by the name of Helus, who was accused of having murdered Herodes, who, while on a journey with Helus, mysteriously disappeared.

On The Murder of Herodes. (Helus, a Mitylenean, having been accused of the murder of Herodes, who had mysteriously disappeared from the boat in which the two had embarked in company, defended himself in the following speech, composed for him by Antiphon):

I could have wished, gentlemen, that I possessed the gift of eloquence and legal experience proportionate to my adversity. Adversity I have experienced in an unusual degree, but in eloquence and legal experience I am sadly deficient. The result is that, in circumstances where I was compelled to suffer personal ill-usage on a false charge, legal experience did not come to my rescue; and here, when my salvation depends on a true statement of the facts, I feel embarrassed by my incapacity for speaking. Many an innocent man has been condemned because of his inability to present clearly the truth and justice of his cause. Many a guilty man, on the other hand, has escaped punishment through skilful pleading. It follows, then, that if the accused lacks experience on these matters, his fate depends rather on the representation of his prosecutors than on the actual facts and true version of the case.

I shall not ask you, gentlemen, to give me an impartial hearing. And yet I am aware that such is the practice of most men on trial, who have no faith in their own cause or confidence in your justice. No, I make no such request, because I know full well that, like all good men and true, you will grant me the same hearing that you grant the prosecution. I do ask you, however, to be indulgent if I commit any indiscretion of speech, and to attribute it rather to my inexperience than to the injustice of my cause. But if my argument has any weight I pray you will ascribe it rather to the force of truth than rhetorical art.

I have always felt that it is not just either that one who has done wrong should be saved through eloquence, or that one who has done no wrong should be condemned through lack of eloquence. Unskilful speaking is but a sin of the tongue; but wrongful acts are sins of the soul. Now it is only natural that a man whose life is in danger should commit some indiscretion of speech; for he must be intent not only on what he says but on the outcome of the trial, since all that is still uncertain is controlled rather by chance than by providence. This fact inspires great fear in a man whose life is at stake. In fact, I have often observed that the most experienced orators speak with embarrassment when their lives are in danger. But whenever they seek to accomplish some purpose without danger they are more successful. My request for indulgence, then gentlemen, is both natural and lawful; and it is no less your duty to grant it than my right to make it.

I shall now consider the case for the prosecution in detail. And first I shall show you that I have been brought to trial here in violation of law and justice, not on the chance of eluding your judgment—for I would commit my life to your decision, even if you were bound by no oath to pronounce judgment according to law, since I am conscious that I have done no wrong and feel assured that you will do me justice: no, my purpose in showing you this is rather that the lawlessness and violence of my accusers may bear witness to you of their better feeling towards me.

First, then, though they imprisoned me as a malefactor, they have indicted me for homicide—an outrage that no one has ever suffered in this land. For I am not a malefactor, or amenable to the law of malefactors, which has to do only with thieves and highwaymen. So far, then, as they have dealt with me by summary process, they have made it possible for you to make my acquittal lawful and righteous.

But they argue that homicide is a species of malefaction. I admit that it is a great crime, as great as sacrilege or treason. But these crimes are dealt with each according to its own particular laws. Moreover, they compel me to undergo trial in this place of public assemblage, where all men charged with murder are usually forbidden to appear; and furthermore they would commute to a fine in my case the sentence of death imposed by law on all murderers, not for my benefit, but for their own private gain, thereby defrauding the dead of lawful satisfaction. Their reason for so doing you will perceive as my argument advances.

In the second place, you all know that the courts decide murder cases in the open air, for no reason than that the judges may not assemble in the same place with those whose hands have been defiled with blood, and that the prosecutor may not be sheltered beneath the same roof with the murderer. This custom my accusers have utterly disregarded. Nay, they have even failed to take the customary solemn oath that, whatever other crimes I may have committed, they will prosecute me for murder alone, and will allow no meritorious act of mine to stand in the way of my condemnation. Thus do they prosecute me unsworn; and even their witnesses testify against me without having taken the oath. And then they expect you, gentlemen, to believe these unsworn witnesses and condemn me to death, when they have made it impossible for you to accept such testimony by their violation and contempt of the law.

But they contend if I had been set free I would have fled. What motive could I have had? For, if I did not mind exile, I might have refused to come home when summoned, and have incurred judgment by default, or, having come, might have left voluntarily after my first trial. For such a course is open to all. And yet my accusers in their lawlessness seek to deprive me alone of the common right of all Greeks.

This leads me, gentlemen, to say a word about the laws that govern my case. And I think you will admit that they are good and righteous, since, though very ancient, they still remain unchanged—an unmistakable proof of excellence in laws. For time and experience teach men what is good and what is not good. You ought not, therefore, judge by the arguments of my accusers whether the laws are good or bad, but rather judge by the laws whether their claims are just or unjust. So perfect, indeed, are the laws that relate to homicide, that no one has ever dared to disturb them. But these men have dared to constitute themselves lawmakers in order to effect their wicked purposes, and disregarding these ordinances they seek unjustly to compass my ruin.

Their lawlessness, however, will not help them, for they well know that they have no sworn witness to testify against me. Moreover, they did not make a single decisive trial of the matter, as they would have done if they had confidence in their cause. No, they left room for controversy and argument, as if, in fact, they meant to dispute the previous verdict. The result is that I gain nothing by an acquittal, since it will be open to them to say that I was acquitted as a malefactor, not as a murderer, and catching me again they will ask to have me sentenced to death on a charge of homicide. Wicked schemers! Would ye have the judges set aside a verdict obtained by fair means, and put me a second time in jeopardy of my life for the same offense? But this is not all. They would not even allow me to offer bail according to law, and thus escape imprisonment, though they have never before denied this privilege even to an alien. And yet the officers in charge of malefactors conform to the same custom. I, alone, then, have failed to derive advantage from this common right conferred by law. This wrong they have done me for two reasons: First, that they might render me helpless to prepare for my defense; and, second, that they might influence my friends, through anxiety for my safety, to bear false witness against me. Thus, would they bring disgrace upon me and mine for life.

In this trial, then, I am at a disadvantage in respect to many points of your law and of justice. Nevertheless, I shall try to prove my innocence. And yet I realize that it will be difficult immediately to dissipate the false impression which these men have long conspired to create. For it is impossible for any man to guard against the unexpected.

Now, the facts in the case, gentlemen, are briefly these: I sailed from Mitylene in the same boat with Herodes, whom I am accused of having murdered. Our destination was the same—Aenus, but our objectives were different. I went to visit my father, who happened to be at Aenus at that time; Herodes went to sell some slaves to certain Thracian merchants. Both the slaves and the merchants sailed with us.

To confirm these statements I shall now offer the testimony of competent witnesses.

To continue, then, we were compelled by a violent storm to put in at a port on the Methymnian coast, and there we found the boat on which they allege I killed Herodes.

Now I would have you bear in mind that this whole affair took place not through design on my part, but through chance. For it was by chance that Herodes undertook the voyage with me. It was by chance that we encountered the storm, which compelled us to put in at the Methymnian port. And it was by chance that we found the cabined boat in which we sought shelter against the violence of the storm.

After we had boarded the other boat and had taken some wine, Herodes left us, never to return. But I did not leave the boat at all that night. On the day after Herodes disappeared, however, I sought him as diligently as any of our company, and felt his loss as keenly. It was I who proposed sending a messenger to Mitylene, and when no one else was willing to go I offered to send my own attendant. Of course, I would not have done this if I had murdered Herodes, for I would be sending an informant against myself. Finally, it was only after I was satisfied by diligent search that Herodes was nowhere to be found, that I sailed away with the first favorable wind. Such are the facts.

What inference can you draw from these facts other than that I am an innocent man? Even these men did not accuse me on the spot, while I was still in the country, although they knew of the affair. No, the truth was too apparent at that time. Only after I had departed, and they had had an opportunity to conspire against me, did they bring this indictment.

Now the prosecution have two theories of the death of Herodes. One is that he was killed on shore, the other that he was cast into the sea. First, then, they say that I killed Herodes on shore, by striking him on the head with a stone. This is impossible, since, as I have proved, I did not leave the boat that night. Strange that they should pretend to have accurate knowledge of the manner of his death, and yet not be able satisfactorily to account for the disappearance of his body. Evidently this must have happened near the shore, for, since it was night, and Herodes was drunk, his murderer could have had no reason to take him far from the shore. However that may be, two days’ search failed to produce any trace of him. This drives them to their second hypothesis—that I drowned Herodes. If that were so, there would be some sign in the boat that the man was murdered and cast into the sea. No such sign, however, appears. But they say they have found signs in the boat in which he drank the wine. And yet they admit he was not killed in that boat. The utter absurdity of this second view is shown by the fact that they cannot find the boat they say I used for the purpose of drowning Herodes, or any trace of it.

It was not till after I sailed away to Aenus, and the boat in which Herodes and I made the voyage had returned to Mitylene, that these men made the examination that led to the discovery of blood. At once they concluded that I killed Herodes on that very boat. But when they found that this theory was inadmissible, since the blood was proved to be that of sheep, they changed their course and sought to obtain information by torturing the crew. The poor wretch whom they first subjected to torture said nothing compromising about me. But the other, whom they did not torture till several days later, keeping him near them in the meantime, is the one who has borne false witness against me.

All that is possible for you to learn, gentlemen, from the testimony of human witnesses, you have now heard. It remains to consider the testimony of the gods, expressed by signs. For by reliance on these heaven-sent signs you will best secure the safety of the state both in adversity and in prosperity. In private matters, too, you ought to attach great weight to these signs. You all know, of course, that, when a wicked man embarks in the same boat with a righteous man, the gods not infrequently cause the shipwreck and destruction of both because of the sinfulness of one alone. Again, the righteous, by association with the wicked, have been brought, if not to destruction, at least into the greatest dangers that divine wrath can send. Finally, the presence of guilty men at a sacrifice has often caused the omens to be unfavorable. Thus do the gods testify to the guilt and wickedness of man.

In the light of divine testimony, then, my innocence is established. For no mariner with whom I have sailed has ever suffered shipwreck. Nor has my presence at a sacrifice ever caused the omens to be unfavorable.

Now, I feel sure, gentlemen, that if the prosecution could find evidence that my presence on shipboard or at a sacrifice had ever caused any mishap, they would insist upon this as the clearest proof of my guilt. Since, however, this divine testimony is adverse to their claims, they ask you to reject it, and to have faith in their representation. Thus do they run counter to the practice of reasonable men. For, instead of testing words by facts, they seek to overthrow facts by words.

Having now concluded my defense, gentlemen, against all that I can recall of the charge against me, I look to you for acquittal. On that depends my salvation and the fulfilment of your oath. For you have sworn to pronounce judgment according to law. Now, I am not liable to the laws under which I was arrested, while as to the facts with which I am charged I can still be brought to trial in the legal form. And if two trials have been made out of one, the fault is not mine, but that of my accusers. When, however, my worst enemies give me the chance of a second trial, surely you, the impartial awarders of justice, will never pronounce on the present issue a premature verdict of murder. Be not so unjust; rather leave something for that other witness, Time, who aids the zealous seekers of eternal truth. I should certainly desire that in cases of homicide the sentence be in accordance with law, but that the investigation, in every possible instance, be regulated by justice. In this way the interests of truth and right would best be secured. For in homicide cases an unjust sentence banishes truth and justice beyond recall. If, then, you condemn me, you are bound to abide by the sentence, however guiltless I may be. No one would dare, through confidence in his innocence, to contravene the sentence passed upon him, nor, if conscious of guilt, would he rebel against the law. We must yield not only to the truth, but to a verdict against the truth, especially if there be no one to support our cause. It is for these reasons that the laws, the oaths, and the solemnities in murder cases differ from those in all other cases. In this case of cases it is of the utmost importance that the issue be clear and the decisions correct. For, otherwise, either the murdered will be deprived of vengeance or an innocent man will suffer death unjustly. For their accusation is not decisive, the result depends on you. Decide, then, justly; for your decision, if wrong, admits of no remedy.

But how, you may ask, will you decide justly? By compelling my accusers to take the customary solemn oath before they put me upon my defense against an indictment for murder. And how are you to accomplish this? By acquitting me now. And remember that, even though you acquit me now, I shall not escape your judgment, since in the other trial, too, you will be my judges. By an acquittal now you make it possible to deal with me hereafter as you will, but, if you condemn me now, my case will not be open to reconsideration. If, then, you must make any mistake, an undeserved acquittal is less serious than an unjust condemnation. For the former is a mistake only; the latter an eternal disgrace. Take care, then, that you do no irreparable wrong. Some of you in the past have actually repented of condemning innocent men, but not one of you has ever repented of making an undeserved acquittal. Moreover, involuntary mistakes are pardonable, voluntary unpardonable. The former we attribute to chance; the latter to design. Of two risks, then, run the lesser; commit the involuntary mistake; acquit me.

Now, gentlemen, if my conscience were guilty, I should never have come into this city. But I did come—with an abiding faith in the justice of my cause, and strong in conscious innocence. For not once alone has a clear conscience raised up and supported a failing body in the hour of trial and tribulation. A guilty conscience, on the other hand, is a source of weakness to the strongest body. The confidence, therefore, with which I appear before you, is the confidence of innocence.

To conclude, gentlemen, I have only to say that I am not surprised that my accusers slander me. That is their part; yours is not to credit their slander. If, on the other hand, you listen to me, you can afterwards repent, if you like, and punish me by way of remedy, but, if you listen to my accusers, and do what they wish, no remedy will then be admissible. Moreover, no long time will intervene before you can decide lawfully what the prosecution now asks you to decide unlawfully. Matters like these require not haste, but deliberation. On the present occasion, then, take a survey of the case; on the next, sit in judgment on the witnesses; form, now, an opinion; later, decide the facts.

It is very easy, indeed, to testify falsely against a man charged with murder. For, if he be immediately condemned to death, his false accusers have nothing to fear, since all danger of retribution is removed on the day of execution. And, even if the friends of the condemned man cared to exact satisfaction for malicious prosecution, of what advantage would it be to him after his death?

Acquit me, then, on this issue, and compel my accusers to indict me according to law. Your judgment will then be strictly legal, and, if condemned, I cannot complain that it was contrary to law. This request I make of you with due regard to your conscience as well as to my own right. For upon your oath depends my safety. By whichever of these considerations you are influenced, you must acquit me.

pericles

Pericles is considered by many historians to have been the greatest statesman and orator that Athens produced, but the truth regarding his oratorical ability cannot be verified by his orations, because not one of them, in its entirety, has come down to us. We are indebted to the historian Thucydides for what speeches of Pericles we possess, and he has this to say regarding their authenticity: “I have found it difficult to retain a memory of the precise words that I had heard spoken, and so it was with those who brought me report. I have made the persons say what it seemed to me most opportune for them to say, in light of the situation; at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said.” Pericles was born about 495 b. c., and died in 429.

In Favor of the Peloponnesian War (432 b. c.). I always adhere to the same opinion, Athenians, that we should make no concessions to the Lacedaemonians; although I know that men are not persuaded to go to war, and act when engaged in it, with the same temper; but that, according to results, they also change their views. Still I see that the same advice, or nearly the same, must be given by me now as before; and I claim from those of you who are being persuaded to war, that you will support the common resolutions, should we ever meet with any reverse; or not, on the other hand, to lay any claim to intelligence, if successful. For it frequently happens that the results of measures proceed no less incomprehensively than the counsels of man; and therefore we are accustomed to regard fortune as the author of all things that turn out contrary to our expectation.

Now the Lacedaemonians were both evidently plotting against us before, and now especially are doing so. For whereas it is expressed in the treaty, that we should give and accept judicial decisions of our differences, and each side [in the meantime] keep what we have; they have neither themselves hitherto asked for such a decision, nor do they accept it when we offer it; but wish our complaints to be settled by war rather than by words; and are now come dictating, and no longer expostulating. For they command us to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to leave Aegina independent, and to rescind the decree respecting the Megareans; while these last envoys that have come charge us also to leave the Greeks independent. But let none of you think we would be going to war for a trifle, if we did not rescind the decree respecting the Megareans, which they principally put forward [saying] that if it were rescinded, the war would not take place: nor leave it in your mind any room for self-accusation hereafter, as though you had gone to war for a trivial thing. For this trifle involves the whole confirmation, as well as trial, of your purpose. If you yield to these demands, you will soon also be ordered to do something greater, as having in this instance obeyed through fear: but by resolutely refusing you would prove clearly to them that they must treat with you more on an equal footing.

Henceforth then make up your minds, either to submit before you are hurt, or, if we go to war, as I think is better, alike to make no concession on important or trivial grounds, nor to keep with fear what we have not acquired; for both the greatest and the least demand from equals, imperiously urged on their neighbors previous to a judicial decision, amounts to the same degree of subjugation.

Now with regards to the war, and the means possessed by both parties, that we shall not be the weaker side, be convinced of hearing the particulars. The Peloponnesians are men who cultivate their land themselves; and they have no money either in private or public funds. Then they are inexperienced in long and transmarine wars, as they only wage them with each other for a short time, owing to their poverty. And men of this description can neither man fleets nor often send out land armaments; being at the same time absent from their private business, and spending from their own resources; and, moreover, being also shut out from the sea: but it is superabundant revenues that support wars, rather than compulsory contributions. And men who till the land themselves are more ready to wage war with their persons than with their money: feeling confident, with regard to the former, that they will escape from dangers; but not being sure, with regard to the latter, that they will not spend it before they have done; especially should the war be prolonged beyond their expectations, as [in this case] it probably may. For in one battle the Peloponnesians and their allies might cope with all the Greeks together; but they could not carry on a war against resources of a different description to their own; since they have no one board of council, so as to execute any measure with vigor; and all having equal votes, and not being of the same races, each forwards his own interest; for which reasons nothing generally is brought to completion.

Most of all will they be impeded by scarcity of money, while, through their slowness in providing it, they continue to delay their operations; whereas the opportunities of war wait for no one. Neither, again, is their raising works against us worth fearing, or their fleet. With regard to the former, it were difficult even in time of peace to set up a rival city; much more in a hostile country, and when we should have raised works no less against them: and if they build [only] a fort, they might perhaps hurt some part of our land by incursions and desertions; it will not, however, be possible for them to prevent our sailing to their country and raising forts, and retaliating with our ships, in which we are so strong. For we have more advantage for land-service from our naval skill, than they have for naval matters from their skill by land.

But to become skilful at sea will not easily be acquired by them. For not even have you, though practicing from the very time of the Median War, brought it to perfection as yet; how then shall men who are agriculturists and not mariners, and, moreover, will not even be permitted to practice, from being always observed by us with many ships, achieve anything worth speaking of? Against a few ships observing them they might run the risk, encouraging their ignorance by their numbers; but when kept in check by many, they will remain quiet; and through not practicing will be the less skilful, and therefore the more afraid. For naval service is a matter of art, like anything else; and does not admit of being practiced just when it may happen, as a bywork; but rather does not even allow of anything else being a bywork to it.

Even if they should take some of the funds at Olympia or Delphi, and endeavor, by higher pay, to rob us of our foreign sailors, that would be alarming, if we were not a match for them, by going on board ourselves and our resident aliens; but now this is the case; and, what is best of all, we have native steersmen, and crews at large, more numerous and better than all the rest of Greece. And with the danger before them, none of the foreigners would consent to fly his country, and at the same time with less hope of success to join them in the struggle, for the sake of a few days’ higher pay.

The circumstances of the Peloponnesians then seem, to me at least, to be of such or nearly such a character; while ours seem both to be free from the faults I have found in theirs, and to have other great advantages in more than an equal degree. Again, should they come by land against our country, we will sail against theirs; and the loss will be greater for even a part of the Peloponnese to be ravaged, than for the whole of Attica. For they will not be able to obtain any land in its stead without fighting for it; while we have abundance, both in islands and on the mainland. Moreover, consider it [in this point of view]: if we have been islanders, who would have been more impregnable? And we ought, as it is, with views as near as possible to those of islanders, to give up all thought of our land and houses, and keep watch over the sea and the city; and not, though being enraged on their account, to come to an engagement with the Peloponnesians, who are much more numerous: (for if we defeat them, we shall have to fight again with no fewer of them; and if we meet with a reverse, our allies are lost also; for they will not remain quiet if we are not able to lead our forces against them); and we should make lamentation, not for the houses and land, but for the lives [that are lost]; for it is not these things that gain men, but men that gain these things. And if I thought that I should persuade you, I would bid you go out yourselves and ravage them, and show the Peloponnesians that you will not submit to them for these things, at any rate.

I have also many other grounds for hoping that we shall conquer, if you will avoid gaining additional dominion at the time of your being engaged in the war, and bringing on yourselves dangers of your own choosing; for I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of the enemy’s plans. But those points shall be explained in another speech at the time of the events. At the present time let us send these men away with this answer: that with regard to the Megareans, we will also allow them to use our ports and markets, if the Lacedaemonians also abstain from expelling foreigners, whether ourselves or our allies (for it forbids neither the one nor the other in the treaty): with regard to the states, that we will leave them independent, if we also hold them as independent when we made the treaty; and when they, too, restore to the states a permission to be independent suitably to the interests, not of the Lacedaemonians themselves, but of the several states as they wish: that we are willing to submit to judicial decision, according to the treaty: and that we will not commence hostilities, but will defend ourselves against those who do. For this is both a right answer and a becoming one for the state to give.

But you should know that go to war we must; and if we accept it willingly rather than not, we shall find the enemy less disposed to press us hard; and, moreover, that it is from the greatest hazards that the greatest honours also are gained, both by state and by individual. Our fathers, at any rate, by withstanding the Medes—though they did not begin with such resources [as we have], but had even abandoned what they had and by counsel, more than by fortune, and by daring, more than by strength, beat off the barbarian, and advanced their resources to their present height. And we must not fall short of them; but must repel our enemies in every way, and endeavor to bequeath our power to our posterity no less [than we received it].

andocides

Andocides, a Greek orator, diplomatist, and politician, was born at Athens about 467 b. c., and died about 391 b. c. His speeches disclose the possession of practical common sense rather than deep learning, he being one who gained his proficiency of speech by practice in the public assemblies, and not, as most of the orators of his time, in schools of rhetoric. Few authentic speeches of his are in existence, the one here given being his speech “On the Mysteries,” which is considered his best. He delivered it in his own defense against the charge of having mutilated the busts of Hermes.

Speech on the Mysteries. The preparation and zeal of my enemies, gentlemen, to do me harm in every way, justly or unjustly, from the very time I arrived in this city, are by no means unknown to you. It is therefore unnecessary for me to speak at length on this matter. I shall make of you, however, a request that is both just and easy for you to grant as it is important for me to obtain. I ask you to bear in mind that I have come here now, when there was no necessity of my remaining in the city, and although I did not offer bail, and was not committed to prison. I have appeared before you simply because I have confidence in the justice of my cause, and firmly believe that you will decide fairly, and will rather justly acquit me in accordance with your laws and your oaths, than suffer me to be unjustly destroyed by my enemies.

It is only natural, gentlemen, that you should have the same opinion of a man that he has of himself. If he is unwilling to undergo trial and thus condemns himself, it is only reasonable that you, too, should condemn him. But if, confident in his innocence, he awaits your judgment, you should be predisposed to acquit him. At least you ought not to condemn him by a premature verdict of guilty.

My enemies are reported to have said that I would not dare to undergo trial, but would seek safety in flight. “For what object,” they say, “can Andocides have in submitting to trial when it is possible for him to leave the city and have all the necessaries and convenience of life elsewhere? In Cyprus, where he formerly lived, he has a large amount of good land, bestowed on him as a gift. Can he, then, be willing to put his life in jeopardy? For what purpose? Does he not perceive the feeling of our city towards him?”

My feeling in this matter, gentlemen, is very different from what my enemies suppose. Even though I do not, as these men assert, share the good will of my countrymen, I am unwilling to live elsewhere in affluence—an exile from my native land. I should much prefer to be a citizen of this commonwealth than of all others, however prosperous they may now seem to be. It is with such a feeling of patriotism that I entrust my life to your decision.

I ask you, then, gentlemen, to accord me in my defense a preponderance of your good will, since you know that, even if you grant both parties in the suit an impartial hearing, I, the defendant, must necessarily be at a disadvantage. For the prosecution, after long preparation, bring this indictment against me without danger to themselves. But I must make my defense in fear and trembling for my life, and weighed down by the obloquy that has been heaped upon me. It is, therefore, only reasonable that you should favor me rather than the prosecution. There is a further consideration to dispose you in my favor. Prosecutors have frequently been found to bring charges so palpably false that you could not but convict and punish them. Witnesses, too, who have been instrumental in bringing about the condemnation of innocent men, have been convicted only after it was too late to save the guiltless victims of their false testimony. Guided, then, and warned by the experience of the past, you will not take for granted the truth of what my accusers say. The magnitude of the charges against me you can learn from the prosecution; but the truth or falseness of that charge you cannot know until you have heard my defense.

Now, how to begin my defense, gentlemen, perplexes me not a little. I feel considerable doubt whether I ought first to show you that the prosecution have brought the wrong form of action against me; or that the decree of Isotimidas is null and void; or that certain laws and oaths forbid this action; or whether I ought to tell you all the facts from beginning to end. But what most perplexes me is the fact that you do not all perhaps regard as equally serious the same points in the charge against me. Each one of you, I suppose, has in mind some point about which he would like to have me speak first. Since, however, it is impossible to speak of all points at one and the same time, I shall set before you all the facts in order from beginning to end, omitting nothing. For if you get a right understanding of the facts you will readily perceive how false a charge the prosecution have brought against me.

I think, then, that you will feel disposed of your own accord to pronounce a just sentence. And I am led to this conclusion because I have observed that you always consider it a matter of the greatest importance, both in private and public affairs, to vote according to your oaths. It is this very thing that holds the state together, much against the will of those who would have it otherwise. Confiding, then, in your sense of justice, I ask you to hear my defense with good will, and not to act the part of adversaries in this suit. Suspect not the truth of my statements, and ensnare not my words. Hear me patiently to the end, and then pronounce whatever judgment you deem best and most in accordance with your oaths. . . .

Now with regard to the information laid on account of the mutilation of the images, I will tell you everything from the beginning. When, then, Teucrus came from Megara, having obtained special permission, he gave what information he had about the mysteries and images, and denounced eighteen men. Of the men thus denounced, some fled, and others were arrested and put to death on the strength of this information. Those who fled have returned and are now here. Many relatives of those who were put to death are likewise present. I ask, then, any one of these, who will, to interrupt me in the course of my argument and show, if he can, that I was the cause of exile or death in a single case.

After this had taken place, Pisander and Charicles, who were members of the commission of inquiry, and had the reputation at that time of being loyal to the people, declared that what had been done was not the work of merely a few men, but part of a conspiracy to overthrow the commonwealth, and that they ought, therefore, to continue the investigation.

The city was then in a sorry plight. When the herald made proclamation for the Senate to enter the council chamber and hauled down the signal, the trouble began. Then it was that the conspirators fled from the market-place in fear of arrest. Then, too, Diocleides, elated with hope over the misfortunes of the city, brought an impeachment before the Senate, declaring that he knew the men who had mutilated the Hermae, and that they were thirty in number. He told how he chanced to be an eye-witness of the affair. Now I ask you, judges, to give your attention to this matter, and recall whether I speak the truth, refreshing each other’s memories; for Diocleides spoke in your midst. To that fact you yourselves can testify.

Diocleides, you will remember, said that he had a slave at Laurium, and that he had occasion to go for a payment due to him. “He rose early in the morning, mistaking the hour, and started on his way. The moon was full. When he got near the gateway of Dionysus, he saw several men going down from the Odeum into the orchestra of the theater. Afraid of them, he drew into the shade, and crouched down between the pillar and the column with the bronze statue of the general. He saw the men, about three hundred in number, standing around in groups of fifteen and twenty. Most of them he recognized in the light of the moon.” Thus, in the first place, judges, he assumed this story—a most extraordinary one—in order, I fancy, that it might rest with him to include in this list any Athenian he pleased, or at pleasure to exempt him. After he had seen all this he went, he said, to Laurium, where he learned on the following day that the Hermae had been mutilated. He knew at once that it was the work of the men he had seen in the night. Returning to the city he learned that a commission of inquiry had been appointed and that a reward of a hundred minae had been offered for information. Seeing Euphemus, the brother of Callias, the son of Telecles, setting in his smithy, he brought him into the Hephaesteum and told him how he had seen us on that night. Now, he said, he did not desire to receive a reward from the city rather than from us, if he could have us for friends. Euphemus said that he did well to tell him, and asked him to come to the house of Leogoras, that they might there confer with Andocides and the other needful persons. He came, he declared, on the following day, and knocked at the door. He met my father going out, who said to him: “Are you the visitor whom the company here expect? Well, you ought not to reject such friends,” and with these words he was gone. In this way he sought to ruin my father, denouncing him as a confederate. He then stated that we told him we had decided to give him two talents instead of a hundred minae, as offered by the state for information, and that we pledged ourselves, in the event of our success, to make him one of us. His reply, he said, was that he would think it over. We then asked him, he maintained, to come to the house of Callias, the son of Telecles, that he, too, might be present. Thus he sought to ruin also my kinsman. He came, he said, to the home of Callias, concluded an agreement with us, and gave us pledges on the Acropolis, but we failed to pay him, as agreed, the following month. He came, therefore, he said, to give information about what had been done. Such, judges, was his impeachment. . . .

Now, after we were all arrested and the prison doors were shut at night, there came the mother of one man, the sister of another, and the wife and children of another. Then they wept and bewailed their misfortunes. And Charmides, a cousin of my own age, who had been brought up in our home from childhood, said to me: “Andocides, you see how great our calamity is. Although, then, heretofore, I had no wish to speak or to give you pain, yet I am now constrained to do so by our present evil. For all your friends and associates, except us, your relations, have either been put to death of the reasons on account of which we now perish, or have gone into exile, thereby condemning themselves. If, then, you know anything of this matter, tell it, and save first yourself, then your father, whom you ought to love exceedingly, then your brother-in-law, who married your only sister, then the rest of your numerous kinsmen and relatives, and finally me, who never grieved you in my whole life, but have ever been most eager to do whatever was for your interest.”

Now when Charmides had said this, judges, and each of the others besought and supplicated me, I reflected how unhappy I was to have fallen into such misfortune. Was I to see my kinsman put to death unjustly and their property confiscated, and see those who were in no sense to blame for what had been done have their names inscribed on columns as impious sinners against the gods? Was I further to see three hundred Athenians perish undeservedly, the city involved in calamity, and the citizens suspicious of one another? Was I, I ask, to sit by idly, and see all this, or was it my place to tell the people of Athens what I had heard from Euphiletus himself, the man who committed the outrage? I further reflected, judges, that of those who had wrought the deed of shame some had been put to death on the information of Teucrus, and others, having gone into exile, had sentence of death passed upon them in their absence. Four remained, who had not been informed against by Teucrus,—Panaetius, Chaeredamus, Diacritus, and Lysistratus. These men above all seemed likely to have been confederates of those against whom Diocleides had informed, since they were their intimate friends. For these men, then, safety was never secure; but over my own relatives hung certain destruction, unless some one told the people of Athens the actual facts. It seemed to me, therefore, better to deprive these four men of their country, who are still alive and have returned to enjoy their patrimony, than to see my own suffer an unjust death. Such were my reflections.

If now any of you, judges, had a preconceived idea that I have information to ruin these men and save myself—an assertion that my enemies make in their attempt to asperse my character—examine that idea in the light of the facts. For I must now give a truthful account of my doings in the presence of the very men who perpetrated the crime and then fled. They know best whether I lie or speak the truth, and may confute me, if they can, in the course of my speech; for I appeal to them. But you must learn the facts. For in this trial, judges, nothing is so important for me as that, if acquitted, I should be acquitted with honor; and, further, that the general public should understand my whole conduct to have been absolutely free from baseness or cowardice. I told what I had heard from Euphiletus through solicitude for my friends and kinsmen, through solicitude for the whole city, with courage and not cowardice. If, then, this is so, I ask you to acquit me and not to think me base.

Now consider—for a judge ought to examine the facts by a human standard, as if the misfortune had been his own—what would any one of you have done? If it had been a question of death with honor or life with shame, you might condemn my conduct as cowardice. And yet many would have chosen life in preference to an honorable death. But here the case was the very reverse: by keeping silent I must have perished ignominiously in my innocence, and must also have permitted the destruction of my father, of my brother-in-law, of all my cousins and relations, whom I and no one else threatened with death, by concealing the guilt of others. The falsehoods of Diocleides had sent them to prison; their only hope of deliverance lay in the Athenians learning the whole truth. I was in danger, therefore, of becoming their murderer, if I failed to tell you what I had heard. I was also in danger of destroying three hundred Athenians, and of involving Athens in the most serious evils. This, then, was the prospect, if I were silent.

How different the prospect if I had made known the truth! Then I should save myself, my father, and my kinsmen, and should deliver the city from dangers and misfortunes. Accordingly four men who participated in the crime were driven into exile through me. I had nothing, however, to do with the death or exile of the men against whom Teucrus had laid information. Considering all this, judges, I concluded that the least of the pressing evils was to tell the whole truth, and, by convicting Diocleides of falsifying, to have him punished—a man who sought to ruin us unjustly by deceiving the city, and who, for so doing, was proclaimed a public benefactor and received money from the state. I therefore told the Senate that I knew the men who did the act; that, while we were at a banquet, Euphiletus suggested this scheme, which was not carried out then on account of my opposition; but that later, when I had fallen from my horse in the Cynosarges, and had broken my collar-bone and cut my head, so that I had to be carried home on a stretcher, Euphiletus, seeing my condition, told his confederates that I had agreed to coöperate with them and would mutilate the Hermes by the Phorbanteum. Thus did he deceive them. Yet on that very account the Hermes near my father’s house, dedicated by the Aegean tribe, is, as you all know, the only one in Athens not mutilated; for that task, as Euphiletus told his companions, was assigned to me. When they found this out, they were furious, because I knew of the deed without having had a hand in it. On the following day Meletus and Euphiletus came to me and said: “We have done the deed, Andocides. And if you think fit to remain silent, you will have our friendship as heretofore; otherwise our enmity will be more effectual than any friendship you can make by betraying us.” Thereupon I told them that I considered Euphiletus a villain, and that they ought to feel furious, not because I knew it, but because they had done the abominable deed. In support of this statement I gave my own slave for the torture, to prove that I had been ill and unable even to leave my bed; and the Presidents received the female slaves for examination in the house from which the conspirators set forth to begin their work. After the Senate and the commission of inquiry found out that everything was just as I had stated, they summoned Diocleides. No words were wasted. He at once admitted that he had lied, and asked to be spared on condition of revealing the men who had put him up to it. He said they were Alcibaides of the deme of Phegeus and Amiantus from Aegina; both of whom fled in fear. After you had heard this you imprisoned Diocleides and put him to death, but delivered my relatives from destruction—all on my account. Moreover you allowed the exiles to return; and you yourselves were freed from great dangers and evils.

Wherefore, judges, you ought to pity me in my misfortune; nay, you ought to hold me in honor for what I have done. When Euphiletus proposed the most traitorous of all compacts, I opposed him, and upbraided him as he deserved. Yet I concealed the crime of the conspirators, even when some were put to death and others driven into exile through the information laid by Teucrus. Only after we were imprisoned and on the point of being put to death through the instrumentality of Diocleides, did I denounce the four conspirators—Panaetius, Diacritus, Lysistratus, and Chaeredemus. These men, I admit, were driven into exile on my account. But my act saved my father, my brother-in-law, three cousins, and seven other relatives, all of whom were about to suffer an unjust death. These now behold the light of day on my account, and they frankly admit it. Moreover, the man who threw the whole city into confusion and involved it in the greatest dangers has been convicted. Finally you have been delivered from great dangers and freed from suspicion, one against another.

Recall, now, judges, whether I speak the truth, and do those of you who know, enlighten the rest. And do you, clerk, call the persons themselves who were released through me; for they know and can tell you best. This is so, judges; as they will come up and testify as long as you care to listen. . . .

And now, gentlemen, when you are about to pronounce final judgment, there are certain things you should call to mind. Remember that you now enjoy among all the Greeks the enviable reputation of being not only brave on the field of battle, but wise in the council chamber, since you attend not so much to the punishment of past misdeeds as to the future security of the State and the concord of its citizens. Other States as well as ours have had their share of evils. But the peaceful settlement of civil discord is the triumph of the best and wisest peoples. Since, then, you have the admiration of all nations, hostile as well as friendly, take care that you do not deprive your city of its fair fame, or create the impression that your success is due rather to chance than deliberation.

I ask you further to have the same opinion of me that you have of my ancestors. Give me the chance to follow their example. They occupy a place in the memory of their countrymen by the side of the greatest benefactors of the State. They served their country nobly and well, chiefly through good will to you, and with the further purpose that, if ever they or their descendants should fall into misfortune, they might find favor and pardon with you. Forget them not; for once their meritorious deeds served our city in a time of need. When our navy was annihilated at Aegospotami, and many were bent on the destruction of Athens, the Spartans decided to save the city through respect for the memory of those men who had fought for the liberty of all Greece. Since, then, our city was saved through the merits of my ancestors; for to the deeds that saved our city my ancestors contributed no small part. Share with me, then, the salvation that you received from the Greeks.

Consider, also, if you save me, what manner of citizen you will have in me. Once rich and affluent, I have been reduced to penury and want through no fault of mine, but through calamities that befell our city. Since then I have earned my livelihood in an honest way, toiling with my hands and brain. Many friends, I have, too; among them kings and great men of the world, whose friendship you will share with me.

If, on the other hand, you destroy me, there will be no one left to perpetuate our name and family. And yet the home of Andocides and Leogoras is no disgrace to Athens. But great will be the disgrace if I am in exile, and Cleophon, the lyremaker, dwells in the house of my fathers—a house whose walls are decked with trophies taken by my ancestors from the enemies of their country.

Though my ancestors be dead, let their memory still live, and fancy that you see their shades solemnly pleading in my behalf. For whom else have I to plead for me? My father? He is dead. Brothers? I have none. Children? None have yet been born to me.

Do you, then, be to me father, brother, children. To you I flee for refuge; you I supplicate and beseech. Turn then, in supplication to yourselves, and grant me life and safety.

lysias

Lysias, while he never attained Athenian citizenship, resided most of his life at Athens, and took an important and intimate part in the affairs of that city while it was a democracy. The ancient historians place his birth at 459 b. c., and his death at 378 b. c., but modern critics would place his birth at about 440 b. c., and his death at 380 b. c. Thirty-four orations are ascribed to Lysias, but the authenticity of several of them is questionable. His style is simple and clear, at the same time possessing force and vividness of expression.

The oration here given was delivered in Athens in 403 b. c., and is considered the best of his speeches that have come down to us. Eratosthenes was one of the Thirty Tyrants who decreed the death of the brother of Lysias.

Against Eratosthenes (403 b. c.). It is an easy matter, O Athenians, to begin this accusation. But to end it without doing injustice to the cause will be attended with no small difficulty. For the crimes of Eratosthenes are not only too atrocious to describe, but too many to enumerate. No exaggeration can exceed, and within the time assigned for this discourse it is impossible fully to represent them. This trial, too, is attended with another singularity. In other causes it is usual to ask the accusers: “What is your resentment against the defendants?” But here you must ask the defendant: “What was your resentment against your country? What malice did you bear your fellow citizens? Why did you rage with unbridled fury against the state itself?”

The time has now indeed come, Athenians, when, insensible to pity and tenderness, you must be armed with just severity against Eratosthenes and his associates. What avails it to have conquered them in the field, if you be overcome by them in your councils? Do not show them more favor for what they boast they will perform, than resentment for what they have already committed. Nor, after having been at so much pains to become masters of their persons, allow them to escape without suffering that punishment which you once sought to inflict; but prove yourselves worthy of that good fortune which has given you power over your enemies.

The contest is very unequal between Eratosthenes and you. Formerly he was both judge and accuser; but we, even while we accuse, must at the same time make our defense. Those who were innocent he put to death without trial. To those who are guilty we allow the benefit of law, even though no adequate punishment can ever be inflicted. For should we sacrifice them and their children, would this compensate for the murder of your fathers, your sons, and your brothers? Should we deprive them of their property, would this indemnify the individuals whom they have beggared, or the State which they have plundered? Though they can not suffer a punishment adequate to their demerit, they ought not, surely, on this account, to escape. Yet how matchless is the effrontery of Eratosthenes, who, being now judged by the very persons whom he formerly injured, still ventures to make his defense before the witnesses of his crimes. What can show more evidently the contempt in which he holds you, or the confidence which he reposes in others?

Let me now conclude with laying before you the miseries to which you were reduced, that you may see the necessity of taking punishment on the authors of them. And first, you who remained in the city, consider the severity of their government. You were reduced to such a situation as to be forced to carry on a war, in which, if you were conquered, you partook indeed of the same liberty with the conquerors; but if you proved victorious, you remained under the slavery of your magistrates. As to you of the Piraeus, you will remember that though you never lost your arms in the battles which you fought, yet you suffered by these men what your foreign enemies could never accomplish, and at home, in times of peace, were disarmed by your fellow citizens. By them you were banished from the country left you by your fathers. Their rage, knowing no abatement, pursued you abroad, and drove you from one territory to another. Recall the cruel indignities which you suffered; how you were dragged from the tribunal and the altars; how no place, however sacred, could shelter you against their violence. Others, torn from their wives, their children, their parents, after putting an end to their miserable lives, were deprived of funeral rites; for these tyrants imagined their government so firmly established that even the vengeance of the gods was unable to shake it.

But it is impossible for one, or in the course of one trial, to enumerate the means which were employed to undermine the power of this state, the arsenals which were demolished, the temples sold or profaned, the citizens banished or murdered, and those whose dead bodies were impiously left uninterred. Those citizens now watch your decree, uncertain whether you will prove accomplices of their death or avengers of their murder. I shall desist from any further accusations. You have heard, you have seen, you have experienced. Decide then!

isocrates

Isocrates, one of the greatest of the great men who lived between 500 and 300 b. c., and made Greece famous for literary and oratorical preëminence, owes his renown not to his ability as a deliverer of speeches, but as a constructor of them, and as a teacher of rhetoric and oratory. He understood the principles of vocal expression perfectly, but he was of a retiring nature and lacked volume of voice, the latter being a particularly serious drawback because of the necessity of speaking in the open before vast concourses of people. He withdrew from active participation in the public life of Athens, and opened a school in that city for the training of orators. Isaeus, the teacher of Demosthenes, was one of his pupils. Isocrates was born in 436 b. c., and died at the age of ninety-eight.

Encomium on Evagoras. When I saw, O Nicocles, that you were honoring the tomb of your father, not only with numerous and magnificent offerings, according to custom, but also with dances, musical exhibitions, and athletic contests, as well as with horse races and trireme races, on a scale that left no possibility of their being surpassed, I thought that Evagoras, if the dead have any feeling of what happens on earth, while accepting this offering favorably, and beholding with joy your filial regard for him and your magnificence, would feel far greater gratitude to any one who could show himself capable of worthily describing his mode of life and the dangers he had undergone than to any one else; for we shall find that ambitious and high-souled men not only prefer praise to such honors, but choose a glorious death in preference to life, and are more jealous of their reputation than of their existence, shrinking from nothing in order to leave behind a remembrance of themselves that shall never die.

Now, expensive displays produce none of these results, but are merely an indication of wealth; those who are engaged in liberal pursuits and other branches of rivalry, by displaying, some their strength, and others their skill, increase their reputation; but a discourse that could worthily describe the acts of Evagoras would cause his noble qualities to be ever remembered amongst all mankind.

Other writers ought accordingly to have praised those who showed themselves distinguished in their own days, in order that both those who are able to embellish the deeds of others by their eloquence, speaking in the presence of those who were acquainted with the facts, might have adhered to the truth concerning them, and that the younger generation might be more eagerly disposed to virtue, feeling convinced that they will be more highly praised than those to whom they show themselves superior.

At the present time, who could help being disheartened at seeing those who lived in the times of the Trojan wars, and even earlier, celebrated in songs and tragedies, when he knows beforehand that he himself, even if he surpass their noble deeds, will never be deemed worthy of such eulogies? The cause of this is jealousy, the only good of which is that it is the greatest curse to those who are actuated by it. For some men are naturally so peevish that they would rather hear men praised, as to whom they do not feel sure that they ever existed, than those at whose hands they themselves have received benefits.

Men of sense ought not to be the slaves of the folly of such men, but, while despising them, they ought at the same time to accustom others to listen to matters which ought to be spoken of, especially since we know that the arts and everything else are advanced, not by those who abide by established customs, but by those who correct and, from time to time, venture to alter anything that is unsatisfactory.

I know that the task I am proposing to myself is a difficult one—to eulogize the good qualities of a man in prose. A most convincing proof of this is that, while those who are engaged in the study of philosophy are ever ready to speak about many other subjects of various kinds, none of them has ever yet attempted to compose a treatise on a subject like this.

When a boy, he was distinguished for beauty, strength, and modesty, the most becoming qualities at such an age. In proof of which witnesses could be produced: of his modesty, those of the citizens who were brought up with him; of his beauty, all who saw him; of his strength, the contests in which he surpassed his compeers.

When he grew to man’s estate, all these qualities were proportionately enhanced, and in addition to them he acquired courage, wisdom, and uprightness, and these in no small measure, as is the case with some others, but each of them in the highest degree.

For he was so distinguished for his bodily and mental excellence, that, whenever any of the reigning princes of the time saw him, they were amazed and became alarmed for their rule, thinking it impossible that a man of such talents would continue to live in the position of a private individual, and whenever they considered his character they felt such confidence in him, that they were convinced that he would assist them if any one ventured to attack them.

In spite of such changes of opinion concerning him, they were in neither case mistaken; for he neither remained a private individual, nor, on the other hand, did them injury, but the Deity watched over him so carefully in order that he might gain the kingdom honorably, that everything which could not be done without involving impiety was carried out by another’s hands, while all the means by which it was possible to acquire the kingdom without impiety or injustice he reserved for Evagoras. For one of the nobles plotted against and slew the tyrant, and afterwards attempted to seize Evagoras, feeling convinced that he would not be able to secure his authority unless he got him out of the way.

Evagoras, however, escaped this peril and, having got safe to Soli in Cilicia, did not show the same feeling as those who are overtaken by like misfortunes. Others, even those who have been driven from sovereign power, have their spirits broken by the weight of their misfortunes; but Evagoras rose to such greatness of soul, that, although he had all along lived as a private individual, at the moment when he was compelled to flee, he felt that he was destined to rule.

Despising vagabond exiles, unwilling to attempt to secure his return by means of strangers, and to be under the necessity of courting those inferior to himself, he seized this opportunity, as befits all who desire to act in a spirit of piety and to act in self-defense rather than to be the first to inflict an injury, and made up his mind either to succeed in acquiring the kingdom or to die in the attempt if he failed. Accordingly, having got together fifty men (on the highest estimate), he made preparations to return to his country in company with them.

From this it would be easy to recognize his natural force of character and the reputation he enjoyed amongst others; for, when he was on the point of setting sail with so small a force on so vast an undertaking, and when all kinds of perils stared him in the face, he did not lose heart himself, nor did any of those whom he had invited to assist him think fit to shrink from dangers, but, as if they were following a god, all stood by their promises, while he showed himself as confident as if he had a stronger force at his command than his adversaries, or knew the result beforehand.

This is evident from what he did; for, after he had landed on the island, he did not think it necessary to occupy any strong position, and, after providing for the safety of his person, to wait and see whether any of the citizens would come to his assistance; but, without delay, just as he was, on that eventful night he broke open a gate in the wall, and leading his companions through the gap, attacked the royal residence.

There is no need to waste time in telling of the confusion that ensues at such moments, the terror of the assaulted, and his exhortations to his comrades; but, when the supporters of the tyrant resisted him, while the rest of the citizens looked on and kept quiet, fearing, on the one hand, the authority of their rule, and, on the other, the valor of Evagoras; he did not abandon the conflict, engaging either in single combat against numbers, or with few supporters against the whole of the enemy’s forces, until he had captured the palace, punished his enemies, succored his friends, and finally recovered for his family its ancestral honors, and made himself ruler of the city.

I think, even if I were to mention nothing else, but were to break off my discourse at this point, it would be easy to appreciate the valor of Evagoras and the greatness of his achievements; however, I hope that I shall be able to present both even more clearly in what I am going to say.

For while, in all ages, wo many have acquired sovereign power, no one will be shown to have gained this high position more honorably than Evagoras. If we were to compare the deeds of Evagoras with those of each of his predecessors individually, such details would perhaps be unsuitable to the occasion, while time would be insufficient for their recital; but if, selecting the most famous of these men, we examine them in the light of his actions, we shall be able to investigate the matter equally well, and at the same time to discuss it more briefly.

Who would not prefer the perils of Evagoras to the lot of those who inherited kingdoms from their fathers? For no one is so indifferent to fame that he would choose to receive such power from his ancestors rather than to acquire it, as he did, and to bequeath it to his children. Further, amongst the returns of princes to their thrones that took place in old times, those are most famous which we hear of from the poets; for they not only inform us of the most renowned of all that have taken place, but add new ones out of their own imaginations. None of them, however, has invented the story of a prince who, after having undergone such fearful and terrible dangers, has returned to his own country; but most of them are represented as having regained possession of their kingdoms by chance, others as having overcome their enemies by perfidy and intrigue.

Amongst those who lived afterwards (and perhaps more than all) Cyrus, who deprived the Medes of their rule and acquired it for the Persians, is the object of most general admiration. But, whereas, Cyrus conquered the army of the Medes with that of the Persians, an achievement which many (whether Hellenes or barbarians) could easily accomplish, Evagoras undoubtedly carried out the greater part of what has been mentioned by his own unaided energy and valor.

In the next place, it is not yet certain, from the expedition of Cyrus, that he would have faced the perils of Evagoras, while it is obvious, from the achievements of the latter, that he would readily have attempted the same undertakings as Cyrus. Further, while Evagoras acted in everything in accordance with rectitude and justice, several of the acts of Cyrus were not in accordance with religion; for the former merely destroyed his enemies, the latter slew his mother’s father. Wherefore, if any were content to judge, not the greatness of events, but the good qualities of each, they would rightly praise Evagoras more than Cyrus.

But—if I am to speak briefly and without reserve, without fear of jealousy, and with the utmost frankness—no one, whether mortal, demigod, or immortal, will be found to have acquired his kingdom more honorably, more gloriously, or more piously than he did. One would feel still more confident of this if, disbelieving what I have said, he were to attempt to investigate how each obtained supreme power. For it will be manifest that I am not in any way desirous of exaggerating, but that I have spoken with such assurance concerning him because the facts which I state are true.

Even if he had gained distinction only for unimportant enterprises, it were fitting that he should be considered worthy of praise in proportion; but, as it is, all would allow that supreme power is the greatest, the most august, and most coveted of all blessings, human and divine. Who then, whether poet, orator, or inventor of words, could extol in a manner worthy of his achievements one who has gained the most glorious prize that exists by most glorious deeds?

However, while superior in these respects, he will not be found to have been inferior in others, but, in the first place, although naturally gifted with most admirable judgment, and able to carry out his undertakings most successfully, he did not think it right to act carelessly or on the spur of the moment in the conduct of affairs, but occupied most of his time in acquiring information, in reflection, and deliberation, thinking that, if he thoroughly developed his intellect, his rule would be in like manner glorious, and looking with surprise upon those who, while exercising care in everything else for the sake of the mind, took no thought for the intelligence itself.

In the next place, his opinion of events was consistent; for, since he saw that those who look best after realities suffer the least annoyance, and that true recreation consists not in idleness, but in success that is due to continuous toil, he left nothing unexamined, but had such thorough acquaintance with the condition of affairs, and the character of each of the citizens, that neither did those who plotted against him take him unawares, nor were the respectable citizens unknown to him, but all were treated as they deserved; for he neither punished nor rewarded them in accordance with what he heard from others, but formed his judgment of them from his own personal knowledge.

But, while he busied himself in the care of such matters, he never made a single mistake in regard to any of the events of everyday life, but carried on the administration of the city in such a spirit of piety and humanity that those who visited the island envied the power of Evagoras less than those who were subject to his rule; for he consistently avoided treating any one with injustice, but honored the virtuous, and, while ruling all vigorously, punished the wrongdoers in strict accordance with justice; having no need of counsellors, but, nevertheless, consulting his friends; often making concessions to his intimates, but in everything showing himself superior to his enemies; preserving his dignity, not by knitted brows, but by his manner of life; not behaving irregularly or capriciously in anything, but preserving consistency in word as well as in deed; priding himself, not on the successes that were due to chance, but those due to his own efforts; bringing his friends under his influence by kindness, and subduing the rest by his greatness of soul; terrible, not by the number of his punishments, but by the superiority of his intellect over that of the rest; controlling his pleasures, but not led by them; gaining much leisure by little labor, but never neglecting important business for the sake of short-lived ease; and, in general, omitting none of the fitting attributes of kings, he selected the best from each form of political activity; a popular champion by reason of his care for the interests of the people, an able administrator in his management of the state generally, a thorough general in his resourcefulness in the face of danger, and a thorough monarch from his pre-eminence in all these qualities. That such were his attributes, and even more than these, it is easy to learn from his acts themselves.

hyperides

Hyperides, born in 396 b. c., and died in 322 b. c., was a pupil in philosophy of Plato, and studied oratory under Isocrates. He was at one time a close associate and follower of Demosthenes, but later disagreed with him on matters pertaining to the state, and took part in the prosecution that finally drove Demosthenes into exile. Hyperides was famed for the charm of his delivery, being esteemed by many equal to Demosthenes in this respect, and for the brilliancy and quickness of his wit.

Speech Against Athenogenes. [Hyperides’ client, whose name does not appear, desired to obtain a boy slave, who, with his father and brother, was the property of Athenogenes. The plaintiff proposed to purchase the liberty of the boy in question, while Athenogenes, aided by Antigona, lured the purchaser, by false representations, into buying all three slaves with their liabilities, which he pretended were but trifling. After the bargain was completed the plaintiff found that the slaves had brought him debts enough to compass his ruin; he therefore brought suit against Athenogenes and engaged Hyperides as counsel. The following speech, of which some fragments are missing, presents a satisfactory example of the orator’s style. The opening sentences are lost. What is here given is but an extract from the speech]:

Gentlemen, you have heard the whole story in all its details. Possibly, however, Athenogenes will plead, when his turn comes, that the law declares all agreements between man and man to be binding. Just agreements, my dear sir. Unjust ones, on the contrary, it declares shall not be binding. I will make this clearer to you from the actual words of the laws. You need not be surprised at my acquaintance with them. You have brought me to such a pass and have filled me with such a fear of being ruined by you and your cleverness that I made it my first and main duty to search and study the laws night and day.

Now one law forbids falsehood in the market-place, and a very excellent injunction it is, in my opinion; yet you have, in open market, concluded a contract with me to my detriment by means of falsehoods. For if you can show that you told me beforehand of all the loans and debts, or that you mentioned in the contract the full amount of them, as I have since found it to be, I will abandon the prosecution and confess that I have done you an injustice.

There is, however, also a second law bearing on this point, which relates to bargains between individuals by verbal agreements. It provides that “when a party sells a slave he shall declare beforehand if he has any blemish; if he omit to do so, he shall be compelled to make restitution.” If, then, the vendor of a slave can be compelled to make restitution because he has omitted to mention some chance infirmity, is it possible that you should be free to refuse responsibility for the fraudulent bargain which you have deliberately devised? Moreover, an epileptic slave does not involve in ruin all the rest of his owner’s property, whereas Midas, whom you sold to me, has ruined, not me alone, but even my friends as well.

And now, Athenogenes, proceed to consider how the law stands, not only with respect to slaves, but also concerning free men. Even you, I suppose, know that children born of a lawfully betrothed wife are legitimate. The lawgiver, however, was not content with merely providing that a wife should be betrothed by her father or brother, in order to establish legitimacy. On the contrary, he expressly enacts that “if a man shall give a woman in betrothal justly and equitably, the children born of such marriage shall be legitimate,” but not if he betroths her on false representations and inequitable terms. Thus the law makes just betrothals valid, and unjust ones it declares invalid.

Again, the law relating to testaments is of a similar nature. It enacts that a man may dispose of his own property as he pleases, “provided that he be not disqualified by old age or disease or insanity, or by influenced by a woman’s persuasions, and that he be not in bonds or under any other constraint.” In circumstances, then, in which marriages and testaments relating solely to a man’s own property are invalidated, how can it be right to maintain the validity of such an agreement as I have described, which was drawn up by Athenogenes in order to steal property belonging to me?

Can it be right that the disposition of one’s property by will should be nullified if it is made under the persuasions of a woman, while, if I am persuaded by Athenogenes’ mistress and am entrapped by them into making this agreement, I am thereby to be ruined, in spite of the express support which is given me by the law? Can you actually dare to rest your case on the contract of which you and your mistress procured the signature by fraud, which is also the very ground on which I am now charging you with conspiracy, since my belief in your good faith induced me to accept the conditions which you proposed? You are not content with having got the forty minas which I paid for the slaves, but you must needs plunder me of five talents in addition, plucking me like a bird taken in a snare. To this end you have the face to say that you could not inform me of the amount of the debts which Midas had contracted, because you had not the time to ascertain it. Why, gentlemen, I, who brought absolute inexperience into the arrangement of commercial matters, had not the slightest difficulty in learning the whole amount of the debts and the loans within three months; but he, with an hereditary experience of three generations in the business of perfumery; he, who was at his place in the market every day of this life; he, who owned three shops and had his accounts made up every month, he, forsooth, was not aware of the debts! He is no fool in other matters, but in his dealings with his slave it appears he at once became a mere idiot, knowing of some of the debts, while others, he says, he did not know of—those, I take it, which he did not want to know of. Such a contention, gentlemen, is not a defense, but an admission that he has no sound defense to offer. If he states that he was not aware of the debts, it is plain that he cannot at the same time plead that he told me all about them; and it is palpably unjust to require me to discharge debts of the existence of which the vendor never informed me.

Well, then, Athenogenes, I think it is tolerably plain on many grounds, that you knew of Midas’ debts, and not the least from that fact that you demanded. . . .[2]

If, however, you did not inform me of the total amount of the debts simply because you did not know it yourself, and I entered into the contract under the belief that what I had heard from you was the full sum of them, which of us ought in fairness to be liable for them—I, who purchased the property after their contraction, or you who originally received the sums borrowed? In my opinion it should be you; but if we differ on this point let the law be our arbiter. The law was not made either by infatuated lovers or by men engaged in conspiracy against their neighbor’s property, but by the most public-spirited of statesmen, Solon. Solon, knowing that sales of property are common in the city, enacted a law—and one universally admitted to be just—to the effect that fines and expenditures incurred by slaves should be discharged by the master for whom they work. And this is only reasonable; for if a slave effect a good stroke of business or establish a flourishing industry, it is his master who reaps the profit of it. You, however, pass over the law in silence, and are eloquent about the iniquity of breaking contracts. Whereas Solon held that a law was more valid than a temporary ordinance, however just that ordinance might be, you demand that a fraudulent contract should outweigh all laws and all justice alike.

I am told, however, that the defendant has another plea in reserve, and will argue that I brought all this mischief on my own head by disregarding his advice. He will declare that he offered to let me take the two boys, but that he urged me to leave Midas to him and not to buy him. I, however, he says, refused and insisted on buying all three. And this, they say, he intends to plead before a court such as the present! His object, of course, is to assume the appearance of fair dealing, but he must have forgotten that he will not be addressing an audience of fools, but one quite capable of seeing through his shameless effrontery. Let me tell you the actual facts, and you will see that they are of a piece with the rest of the conduct of himself and his confederate. He sent the boy, whom I mentioned just now, to me, to say that he could not be mine unless I bought his father and his brother as well as himself. I had actually assented to this and promised to pay the price for all three of them, when Athenogenes, thinking that he now had the upper hand and wishing me to have as much trouble as possible, came to some of my friends. . . .[3]

Now I am no professional perfume-seller, neither have I learned any other trade. I simply till the land which my father gave me. It was solely by this man’s craft that I was entrapped into the sale. Which is more probable on the face of things, Athenogenes, that I was coveting your business (a business of which I had no sort of experience), or that you and your mistress were plotting to get my money? I certainly think the design was on your side. . . .[4]

Further, at the time of the war against Philip he left the city shortly before the battle, and instead of marching out with us to Chaeronea he migrated to Troezen. By so doing he broke the law which enacts that if a man migrates from the city during time of war he shall be liable to impeachment and summary arrest whenever he returns. His action shows that he had made up his mind that the city would escape peril, while he laid ours under sentence of death; and he corroborated this by not marrying his daughters here in Athens, but giving them to husbands in Troezen. . . .[5]

So while he has broken the general covenant which every citizen makes with his state, he lays stress on the private covenant which he made with me, apparently expecting people to believe that a man who is indifferent to justice in his dealings with you would have been careful to observe it in his dealings with me! Why, so universal and impartial was he in his want of principle that, when he had gone to Troezen, and the people of Troezen had conferred their citizenship upon him, he put himself under the directions of Mnesias of Argos, and having been appointed archon by his means, expelled the citizens from their own city. They will prove this to you themselves, since they are living here in exile. You, gentlemen, gave them an asylum when they were expelled from their country, you gave them your citizenship, who shared with them every privilege that you possess. You remembered the service which they had rendered to you more than a hundred and fifty years ago, during the war with Persia, and you recognized the duty of helping in the hour of their misfortune those who had aided you in the hour of your peril. But this scoundrel, this deserter from Athens who had procured admission as a citizen of Troezen, when once his position was thus secured, cared nothing for either the State or the welfare of the citizens, but behaved with the utmost barbarity towards the city which had granted him its hospitality. . . .[6]

To prove the truth of these assertions the clerk shall read to you, first, the law which forbids resident aliens to migrate in time of war; secondly, the evidence of the Troezenians; and finally the ordinance which these same Troezenians passed in your honor, in return for which you gave them asylum here and conferred your citizenship upon them. Read.

[The law, the evidence, and the ordinance are read.]

Now take the deposition of his own relative. . . .

You know of what manner he conspired against me, and how he has been found a traitor against your state; how he despaired of your safety and abandoned the commonweal in the hour of danger; and how he has made homeless many of those to whom he migrated. Will you not then punish this scoundrel, now that you have him in your power? And for myself, gentlemen, I implore you not to refuse me your protection. Reflect that your decision in this case is a matter of life or death for me, while an adverse verdict will inflect no very serious loss upon him. . . . Remember, gentlemen, the oath that you have taken and the laws that have been read in your ears, and give sentence against him in accordance with the justice that you have been sworn to observe.

isaeus

Isaeus, the pupil of Isocrates and the teacher of Demosthenes, was born about 420 b. c., but it is disputed as to whether he was born a Chalcidian or an Athenian. He is famous for his mastery of argumentative oratory, and appears to have studied Lysias attentively, because of the similarity of their styles. Lysias, however, used closely the divisions of a speech, such as introduction, argument, and epilogue, whereas Isaeus avoided formal arrangement of his matter and depended on his argumentative skill for convincing his hearers. He died about the year 370 b. c. Eleven of his speeches, dealing mainly with the law of inheritance, have come down to us.

Menexenus and Others Against Dicaeogenes and Leochares. [Dicaeogenes, whose estate was in dispute, had four sisters, all of whom were married and had issue. When he died without children, his uncle, Proxenus, produced a will by which the deceased appeared to have left a third part of his estate to his cousin, Dicaeogenes. This cousin, not content with a share, insisted that he had a right to the whole, and, having set up another will in his own favor, took possession of the remaining two-thirds of the property. This belonged to the sisters of the deceased, who proved the second will to be a forgery; upon this Dicaeogenes undertook to restore the two-thirds without diminution, and one Leochares was his surety; but on their refusal to perform their promise, the nephews of the elder Dicaeogenes began a suit against them for the performance of their agreement.]

We had imagined, judges, that all agreements made in court concerning this dispute would have been specifically performed; for when Dicaeogenes disclaimed the remaining two-thirds of this estate, and was bound, together with his surety, to restore them without any controversy, on the faith of this assurance we gave a release of our demands; but now, since he refuses to perform his engagement, we bring our complaint, conformably to the oath which we have taken, against both him and his surety, Leochares.

[The Oath]

That we swore truly, both Cephisodotus, who stands near me, perfectly knows, and the evidence, which we shall adduce, will clearly demonstrate. Read the depositions.

[Evidence]

You have heard the testimony of these witnesses, and I am persuaded that even Leochares himself will not venture to assert that they are perjured; but he will have recourse perhaps to this defense, that Dicaeogenes has fully performed his agreement, and that his own office of surety is completely satisfied. If he allege this, he will speak untruly and will easily be confuted; for the clerk shall read to you a schedule of all the effects which Dicaeogenes, the son of Menexenus, left behind him, together with an inventory of those which the defendant unjustly took; and if he affirms that our uncle neither had them in his lifetime nor left them to us at his death, let him prove his assertion; or if he insists that the goods were indeed ours, but that we had them returned to us, let him call a single witness to that fact; as we have produced evidence on our part that Dicaeogenes promised to give us back the two-thirds of what the son of Menexenus possessed, and that Leochares undertook to see him perform his promise. This is the ground of our action, and this we have sworn to be true. Let the oath be read.

[The Oath]

Now, judges, if the defendants intended only to clear themselves of this charge, what has already been said would be sufficient to ensure my success; but, since they are prepared to enter once more into the merits of the question concerning the inheritance, I am desirous to inform you on our side of all the transactions in our family; that, being apprised of the truth, and not deluded by their artifices, you may give a sentence agreeable to reason and justice.

Menexenus our grandfather had one son named Dicaeogenes, and four daughters, of whom Polyaratus my father married one; another was taken by Democles of Phrearrhi; a third by Cephisophon of Paeania; and the fourth was espoused by Theopompus the father of Cephisodotus. Our uncle Dicaeogenes, having sailed to Cnidos in the Parhalian galley, was slain in a sea fight; and, as he left no children, Proxenus the defendant’s father brought a will to our parents, in which his son was adopted by the deceased and appointed heir to a third part of his fortune; this part our parents, unable at that time to contest the validity of the will permitted him to take; and each of the daughters of Menexenus, as we shall prove by the testimony of persons then present, had a decree for her share of the residue.

When they had thus divided the inheritance and had bound themselves by oath to acquiesce in the division, each person possessed his allotment for twelve years; in which time, though the courts were frequently open for the administration of justice, not one of these men thought of alleging any unfairness in the transaction; until, when the state was afflicted with troubles and seditions, this Dicaeogenes was persuaded by Melas the Egyptian, to whom he used to submit on other occasions, to demand from us all our uncle’s fortune and to assert that he was appointed heir to the whole.

When he began his litigation we thought he was deprived of his senses; never imagining that the same man, who at one time claimed to be heir to a third part, and at another time an hear to the whole, could gain any credit before this tribunal; but when we came into court, although we urged more arguments than our adversary and spoke with justice on our side, yet we lost our cause; not through any fault of the jury, but through the villainy of Melas and his associates, who, taking advantage of the public disorders, assumed a power of seizing possessions to which they had no right, by swearing falsely for each other. By such men, therefore, were the jury deceived; and we, overcome by this abominable iniquity, were stripped of our effects; for my father died not long after the trial and before he could prosecute, as he intended, the perjured witnesses of his antagonist.

On the very day when Dicaeogenes had thus infamously prevailed against us, he ejected the daughter of Cephisophon, the niece of him who left the estate, from the portion allotted to her; took from the wife of Democles what her brother had given her as co-heiress; and deprived both the mother of Cephisodotus and the unfortunate youth himself of their whole fortune. Of all these he was at the same time guardian and spoiler, next of kin, and cruelest enemy; nor did the relation which he bore them excite in the least degree his compassion; but the unhappy orphans, deserted and indigent, became destitute even of daily necessities.

Such was the guardianship of Dicaeogenes their nearest kinsman! who gave to their avowed foes what their father Theopompus had left them, illegally possesses himself of the property which they had from their maternal uncle and their grandfather; and (what was the most open act of cruelty) having purchased the house of their father and demolished it, he dug up the ground on which it stood, and made that handsome garden for his own house in the city.

Still further; although he receives an annual rent of eighty minas from the estate of our uncle, yet such are his insolence and profligacy that he sent my cousin, Cephisodotus, to Corinth as a service attendant on his brother Harmodius; and adds to his other injuries this cruel reproach, that he wears ragged clothes and coarse buskins; but is not this unjust, since it was his own violence which reduced the boy to poverty?

On this point enough has been said, I now return to the narration from which I have thus digressed. Menexenus then, the son of Cephisophon, and cousin both to this young man and to me, having a claim to an equal portion of the inheritance, began a prosecution against those who had perjured themselves in the former cause, and convicted Lycon, whom he had first brought to justice, of having falsely sworn that our uncle appointed this Dicaeogenes heir to his whole estate; when, therefore, this pretended heir was disappointed in his hopes of deluding you, he persuaded Menexenus, who was acting both for our interest and his own, to make a compromise, which, though I blush to tell it, his baseness compels me to disclose.

What was their agreement?

That Menexenus should receive a competent share of the effects on condition of his betraying us, and releasing the other false witnesses, whom he had not yet convicted; then, injured by our enemies, and by our friends, we remained with silent indignation; but you shall hear the whole transaction from the mouths of witnesses.

[Evidence]

Nor did Menexenus lose the reward of his perfidy; for, when he had dismissed the persons accused, and given up our cause, we could not recover the promised bribe from his seducer whose deceit he so highly resented, that he came over again to our side.

We, therefore, justly thinking that Dicaeogenes had no right to any part of the inheritance, since his principal witness had been actually convicted of perjury, claimed the whole estate as next of kin to the deceased; nor will it be difficult to prove the justice of our claim; for, since two wills have been produced, one of an ancient date, and the other more recent; since by the first, which Proxenus brought with him, our uncle made the defendant heir to a third part of his fortune, which will Dicaeogenes himself prevailed upon the jury to set aside; and since the second, under which he claims the whole has been proved invalid by the conviction of the perjured witnesses, who swore to its validity; since, I say, both will have been shown to be forged, and no other testament existed, it was impossible for any man to claim the property as heir by appointment, but the sisters of the deceased, whose daughters we married, were entitled to it as heirs by birth.

These reasons induced us to sue for the whole as next of kin, and each of us claimed a share; but when we were on the point of taking the usual oaths on both sides, this Leochares put in a protestation that the inheritance was not controvertible; to this protestation we took exceptions, and having begun to prosecute Leochares for perjury, we discontinued the former case. After we had appeared in court, and urged the same arguments on which we have now insisted, and after Leochares had been very loquacious in making his defense, the judges were of opinion that he was perjured, and as soon as this appeared by the number of pellets, which were taken out of the urns, it is needless to inform you what entreaties he used both to the court and to us, or what an advantage we might then have taken; but attend to the argument which we have made, and upon our consenting that the Archon should mix the pellets together without counting them, Dicaeogenes undertook to surrender two-thirds of the inheritance, and to resign them without any dispute to the sisters of the deceased, and for the full performance of this undertaking, Leochares was his surety, together with Mnesiptolemus the Plotian; all which my witnesses will prove.

[Evidence]

Although we had been thus injured by Leochares, and had it in our power, after he was convicted of perjury, to mark him with infamy, yet we consented that judgment should not be given, and were willing to drop the prosecution upon condition of recovering our inheritance; but after all this mildness and forbearance we were deceived, judges, by these faithless men; for neither has Dicaeogenes restored to us the two-thirds of his estate, conformably to his agreement in court; nor will Leochares confess that he was bound for the performance of that agreement. Now if these promises had not been made before five hundred jurymen and a crowd of hearers, one cannot tell how far this denial might have availed him; but, to show how falsely they speak, I will call some witnesses who were present both when Dicaeogenes disclaimed two-thirds of the succession and undertook to restore them undisputed to the sisters of our uncle, and when Leochares engaged that he should punctually perform what he had undertaken; to confirm his evidence, judges, we entreat you, if any of you were then in court, to recollect what passed, and, if our allegations are true, to give us the benefit of your testimony, for, if Dicaeogenes speaks the truth, what advantage did we reap from gaining the cause, or what inconvenience did he sustain by losing it?

If, as he asserts, he only disclaimed the two-thirds without agreeing to restore them unencumbered, what has he lost by relinquishing his present claim to an estate the value of which he has received? For he was not in possession of the two third parts, even before we succeeded in our suit, but had either sold or mortgaged them; it was his duty, however, to return the money to the purchasers and to give us back our share of the land; since it was with a view to this that we, not relying singly upon his own engagement, instead upon his finding a surety. Yet, except two small houses without the walls of the city, and about sixty acres of land in the plain, we have received no part of our inheritance; nor did we care to eject the purchasers of the rest lest we should involve ourselves in litigation; for when, by the advice of Dicaeogenes, and on his promise not to oppose our title, we turned Micio out of a bath which he had purchased, he brought an action against us and recovered forty minas.

This loss, judges, we incurred through the perfidy of Dicaeogenes; for we, not imagining that he would recede from an agreement so solemnly made, assured the court that we would suffer any evil if Dicaeogenes should warrant the bath to Micio; not that we depended on his own word, but we could not conceive that he would betray the sureties who had undertaken for him; yet this very man, who disavowed all pretensions to these two-thirds, and even now admits his disavowal, had the baseness, when he was vouched by Micio, to acknowledge his warranty; while I, unhappy man, who had not received a particle of my share, was condemned to pay forty minas for having ousted a fair purchaser and left the court oppressed by the insults of this Dicaeogenes. To prove the transaction I shall call my witnesses.

[Evidence]

Thus have we been injured, judges, by this man; whilst Leochares, who was bound for him and has been the cause of all our misfortunes, is confident enough to deny what has been proved against him; because his undertaking was not entered in the register of the court; now, judges, as we were then in great haste, we had time to enter part only of what had been agreed on, and took care to provide faithful witnesses of all the rest; but these men have a convenient subterfuge: what is advantageous to them they allow to be valid although it be not written, but deny the validity of what may be prejudicial to their interests unless it be in writing; nor am I surprised that they refuse to perform their verbal promises since they will not act conformably to their written agreements.

That we speak truly, an undeniable proof shall be produced: Dicaeogenes gave my sister in marriage with a portion of forty minas to Protarchides of Potamos; but, instead of paying her fortune in money he gave her husband a house which belonged to him in Ceramicus; now she had the same right with my mother to a share of the estate; when Dicaeogenes, therefore, had resigned to the women two-thirds of the inheritance, Leochares told Protarchides in what manner he had become a surety, and promised in writing to give him his wife’s allotment if he would surrender to him the house which he had taken instead of the portion; Protarchides, whose evidence you shall now hear, consented; but Leochares took possession of his house and never gave him any part of the allotment.

[Evidence]

As to the repairs of the bath and the expenses of building, Dicaeogenes has already said, and will probably say again, that we have not reimbursed him, according to our engagement, for the sum which he expended on that account, for which reason he cannot satisfy his creditors nor give us the shares to which we are entitled. To answer this, I must inform you that, when we compelled him in open court to disclaim this part of the inheritance, we permitted him, by the advice of the jury, to retain the products of the estate, which he had enjoyed for so long, by way of compensation for his expense in repairs and for his public charges; and some time after, not by compulsion, but of our own free will, we gave him a house in the city, which we separated from our own estate and added to this third part.

This he had as an additional recompense for the materials which he had bought for his building; and he sold the house to Philonicus for fifty minas; nor did we make him this present as a reward of his probity, but as a proof that our own relatives, how dishonest soever, are not undervalued by us for the sake of lucre; and even before, when it was in our power to take ample revenge of him by depriving him of all his possession, we could not act with the rigor of justice, but were contented with obtaining a decree for part of our own property; whilst he, when he had procured an unjust advantage over us, plundered us with all possible violence, and now strives to ruin us, as if we were not his kinsmen, but his inveterate foes.

We will now produce a striking instance of our candor and of his knavery. When, in the month of December, judges, the prosecution against Leochares was carried on with firmness, both he and Dicaeogenes entreated me to postpone the trial and refer all matters in dispute to arbitration; to which proposal, as if we had sustained only a slight injury, we consented; and four arbitrators were chosen, two by us, and as many by them; we then swore, in their presence, that we would abide by their award; and they told us that they would settle our controversy, if possible, without being sworn; but that, if they found it impossible to agree, they would severally declare upon oath what they thought the merits of the case. After they had interrogated us for a long time, and inquired minutely into the whole transaction, Diotamus and Melanopus the two arbitrators, whom we had brought, expressed their readiness to make their award, either upon oath or otherwise, according to their opinion of the truth from the testimony of both parties; but the other two, whom Leochares had chosen, refused to join in any award at all; though one of them, Diopithes, was a kinsman of Leochares, and an enemy to me on account of some former disputes, and his companion, Demaratus, was a brother of that Mnesiptolemus whom I mentioned before as one of the sureties for Dicaeogenes; these two decided against giving any opinion, although they had obliged us to swear that we would submit to their decision.

[Evidence]

It is abominable, then, that Leochares should request you to pronounce a sentence in his favor which his own relation, Diopithes, refused to pronounce; and how can you, judges, with propriety decree for this man, when even his friends have virtually decreed against him? For all these reasons I entreat you, unless you think my request inconsistent with justice, to decide this case against Leochares.

As for Dicaeogenes, he deserves neither your compassion as an indigent and unfortunate man, nor your indulgence as a benefactor in any degree to the state; I shall convince you, judges, that neither of these characters belongs to him; shall prove him to be both a wealthy and a profligate citizen, and shall produce instances of his base conduct towards his friends, his kinsmen, and the public. First, though he took from us an estate from which he annually received eighty minas, and although he enjoyed the profits of it for ten years, yet he is neither in possession of the money nor will declare in what manner he has employed it. It is also worthy of your consideration, that, when he presided over the games of his tribe at the feast of Bacchus he obtained only the fourth prize, and was the last of all in the theatrical exhibitions and the Pyrrhic dances: these were the only offices that he has served, and these, too, by compulsion; and see how liberally he behaved with so large an income! Let me add that in a time of the greatest public calamity, when so many citizens furnished vessels of war, he would not equip a single galley at his own expense, nor even joined with another; whilst others, whose entire fortune was not equal to his yearly rents, bore that expensive office with alacrity; he ought to have remembered that it was not his father who gave him his estate, but you, judges, who established it by your decree; so that, even if he had not been a citizen, gratitude should have prompted him to consult the welfare of the city.

Again, when contributions were continually brought by all who loved their country, to support the war and provide for the safety of the state, nothing came from Dicaeogenes; when Lechaeum indeed was taken, and when he was pressed by others to contribute, he promised publicly that he would give three minas, a sum less than that which Cleonymus the Cretan voluntarily offered; yet even this promise he never performed; but his name was hung up on the statues of the Eponymi with an inscription asserting, to his eternal dishonor, that he had not paid the contribution, which he promised in public, for his country’s service. Who can now wonder, judges, that he deceived me, a private individual, when he so notoriously deluded you all in your common assembly? Of this transaction you shall now hear the proof.

[Evidence]

Such and so splendid have been the services which Dicaeogenes, possessed of so large a fortune, has performed for the city! You perceive, too, in what manner he conducts himself towards his relatives, some of whom he has deprived, as far as he was able, of their property; others he has basely neglected, and forced, through the want of mere necessaries, to enter into the service of some foreign power. All Athens saw his mother sitting in the temple of Illithyia, and heard her accuse him of a crime which I blush to relate, but which he blushed not to commit. As to his friends, he has now incurred the violent hatred of Melas the Egyptian, who had been fond of him from his early youth, by refusing to pay him a sum of money which he had borrowed; his other companions he had either defrauded of sums which they lent him, or has failed to perform his promise of giving them part of his plunder if he succeeded in his cause.

Yet our ancestors, judges, who first acquired this estate, and left it to their descendants, conducted all the public games, contributed liberally toward the expense of the war, and continually had the command of galleys, which they equipped: of these noble acts the presents with which they were able, from what remained of their fortune after their necessary charges, to decorate the temples, are no less undeniable proofs, than they are lasting monuments of their virtue; for they dedicated to Bacchus the tripods which they won by their magnificence in their games; they gave new ornaments to the temple of the Pythian Apollo, and adorned the shrine of the goddess in the citadel, where they offered the first fruits of their estate, with a great number, if we consider that they were only private men, of statues both in brass and stone. They died fighting resolutely in defense of their country; for Dicaeogenes, the father of my grandfather, Menexenus, fell at the head of the Olysian legion in Spartolus; and his son, my uncle, lost his life at Cnidos, where he commanded the Parhalian galley.

His estate, O Dicaeogenes, thou hast unjustly seized and shamefully wasted, and, having converted it into money, hast the assurance to complain of poverty. How hast thou spent that money? Not for the use of the state or of your friends; since it is apparent that no part of it has been employed for those purposes; not in breeding fine horses, for thou never wast in possession of a horse worth more than three minas; not in chariots, for, with so many farms and so great a fortune, that never hadst a single carriage even drawn by mules; nor hast thou redeemed any citizen from captivity; nor hast thou conveyed to the citadel those statues which Menexenus had order to be made for the price of three talents, but was prevented by his death from consecrating in the temple; and, through thy avarice, they lie to this day in the shop of the statuary; thus hast thou presumed to claim an estate to which thou hast no color of right, and hast not restored to the gods the statues, which were truly their own. On what ground, Dicaeogenes, canst thou ask the jury to give a sentence in thy favor? Is it because thou hast frequently served the public offices; expended large sums of money to make the city more respectable, and greatly benefited the State by contributing bountifully towards supporting the war? Nothing of this sort can be alleged with truth. Is it because thou art a valiant soldier? But thou never once could be persuaded to serve in so violent and so formidable a war, in which even the Olynthians and the islanders lose their lives with eagerness, since they fight for this country; while thou, who art a citizen, wouldst never take arms for the city.

Perhaps the dignity of thy ancestors, who slew the tyrant, emboldens thee to triumph over us; as for them, indeed, I honor and applaud them, but cannot think that a spark of their virtue animates thy bosom; for thou hast preferred the plunder of our inheritance to the glory of being their descendant, and wouldst rather be called the son of Dicaeogenes than of Harmodius; not regarding the right of being entertained in the Prytaneum, nor setting any value on the precedence and immunities which the posterity of those heroes enjoy; yet it was not for noble birth that Harmonius and Aristogiton were so transcendently honored, but for their valor and probity; of which thou, Dicaeogenes, hast not the smallest share.

lycurgus

Lycurgus, a pupil both of Plato and Isocrates, was born at Athens about the year 396 b. c., and died in 323 b. c. During the great struggle with Philip of Macedon, he allied himself with Demosthenes and became one of the leaders of the national party. He was a man of refined and artistic tastes, a patriot, and an orator. Only the conclusion of his speech is here given.

Oration Against Leocrates. Gentlemen, you have heard the witnesses. It may well be that what I now declare will rouse your indignation and your scorn of this Leocrates. Not content to abscond alone with his wretched self and his money, he must needs drag with him the ancestral faith, today become your law because your ancestors kept it, the establishment of the fathers and the heritage of him their child, drag this to Megara, filch it from the land. He hallowed not that sacred name of old, would tear it from its home, make it forsake with him the temples and the country once its own, as if in the land of the stranger it could rise again, for him. Athena, with no Athens there! in Megara! their land and their laws to be here! Why did your fathers give to the land her name? Because her land was here. In the name of Athena did they put their trust; she abandons not her own. Leocrates, recreant to law and tradition and religion, took from us all, as far as in him lay, the help that is ours from on high. And not content with all these grievous wrongs, he took the capital he had withdrawn here and with it made shipments of grain from Cleopatra in Epirus into Leucas and from there into Corinth; this in violation of your law which lays so severe a penalty on any man of Athens who shall ship grain to any port but ours. Here then is your man; traitor in war; lawbreaker in business; false to the faith and the land and the law. Here he is in your jurisdiction: shall not his doom be death? shall he not serve warning to others? If not, then ye must be some listless men, whose wrath no crime can rouse.

And now in what strains did Homer voice this theme? To your fathers he was such a noble poet that they passed a law that at every pan-Athenian festival, as the five years came round, his epics alone should be delivered; thus bearing witness to the world of Greece that the greatest of works were the works for them. A salutary measure. Brevity is the nature of the law. It may not instruct; it must simply command. To the poets it must refer the life of man, to portray the human spirit in its loftiest achievement, and with the resistless argument of art our souls are swayed. It is Hector who speaks rousing the Trojans in their country’s name:

When ye have reached the ships, fight onward, ceaselessly striving:
What though the stroke of fate shall call some man to his glory?
Where is the sting of death when a hero falls for his country?
Wife and child and home are safe in the hour that the Argives
Take to the ships once more and sail for the land of their fathers.

With strains like these, men of Athens, ringing in the ears of your sires, they could emulate the deeds of old; rising to such heights of valor that not for their own native State alone, but for all Hellas as a common fatherland, they stood ready to offer up their lives. There on Marathon they went into line in the face of the barbarians, bore down all Asia in arms, the stake their lives alone, winning security for Greece at large; not puffed up with the pride of renown, but glad their work was worthy of its fame; of Greece the champions, masters of the heathen worlds; letting their deeds proclaim aloud with glory. Such was the strenuous life they led in Athens in the great days of old that once when the Lacedaemonians, valiant of men, were at war with the Messinians, the god vouchsafed them a response that bade them take a leader from our people, and then they should conquer their enemies. If then divine judgment declared in favor of our leadership, even for the children of Hercules, lords for all time in Sparta, are we not justified in our faith that once Athenian valor was peerless? Who that is Greek does not know that they took one Tyrtaeus for their general? And with him they overthrew their enemies. And when the immediate peril was past, they (with an admirable wisdom) turned the episode to the advantage of their youth for all time. For when Tyrtaeus left them, his elegiacs were still theirs. While other poets have had no vogue among them, for him their enthusiasm has been so great that they passed a law that whenever a campaign was to open, all the man should be called to the tent of the king to hear the strains of Tyrtaeus. Nothing else, they thought, could make their men so ready to lay down their lives for their country. And now the day is come when we ourselves may need the sound of those elegiacs which could make their way to the souls of Spartans:

Blest is the brave: how glorious is his prize,
When at his country’s call he dares and dies.
And sad the sight when, envious of the dead,
The man without a country begs his bread.
His poor old parents feebly toil along,
And little children who have done no wrong.
Spurned by the glance he meets at every turn,
He learns how hot the beggar’s brand can burn.
His name is shame: the human form divine
Shows in its fall the soul’s dishonored shrine.
Deeds in the dust of ages swiftly root,
And children’s children reap the bitter fruit.
Strike for our country, comrades: on, ye brave!
Where is the man that dreads a patriot grave?
And ye, my younger brethren, side by side,
Shoulder to shoulder stand, whate’er betide.
The surging thrill ye feel before your foe
Swept o’er your father’s heart-strings long ago.
To those whose days are longer in the land
Lend in the pride of youth the helping hand.
For shame to see an old man fall in front
When young men leave him there to bear the brunt:
Low in the dust the hoary hair is trailed;
And last is quenched a soul that never quailed,
Youth in its bloom should pluck the glowing bough
Whose leaves in glory wreathe a hero’s brow.
Welcome to man, and fair in woman’s eye,
The manly form that living dares to die.
Fate hangs apoise, with gloom and triumph fraught:
Up, hearts! and in the balance count we our lives as naught.

Noble sentiments, gentlemen, that sway the soul of him that hath ears to hear. The Spartans could hear them, and receive such an impulse into manhood that they engaged with us in a struggle for the hegemony. It was nature’s rivalry; for the noblest achievements have been wrought on either side. Our ancestors had overthrown the barbarian who had set the first hostile foot upon Attic soil; in them was made manifest a manhood that no money could corrupt, a valor no host countervail. In Thermopylae the Lacedaemonians made their stand; and though the fate they met was not like ours, yet there the ideals of human devotion became reality.

And thus on the borne of life we can see the memorials of the valor of our race graven with the chisel of truth unto all Greek blood:

For Theirs:

Go stranger, tell the Spartans where we lie,
True to the land that taught her sons to die.

For Yours:

On Marathon when Athens fought alone,
Down to the dust the golden East was thrown.

These great memories, Athenians, are the glory of the men who bequeathed them and of Athens the undying renown. Not in this wise was Leocrates wrought. The fair fame of the city, flower of the ages, deliberately hath he defiled. If then he meet death at your hands, all Greece will feel the abhorrence in which you hold such acts. If not, then are the fathers of their ancient fame bereft by the same fell stroke that wounds your brothers in citizenship. They who revere not the men of old will follow the footsteps of this man, quick to descry the path that shall lead them to favor with our enemies, quick to perceive that shamelessness, treachery, cowardice, need only a verdict from you to prove their native worth.

One word more and I am done. To your sovereign chastisement I commit the man who stands for Athenian annihilation. On your own honor and in the presence of the gods you are to give Leocrates his due. On the head of the criminal lies the crime; but in a miscarriage of justice the jurors delinquent become participant of guilt. Gentlemen, ye cast the secret ballot now; but be not deceived: not one man among you can deposit a vote that the eye of heaven does not see. In my opinion, gentlemen, your verdict today reaches all the greatest and most fearful crimes at once: we behold them in the person of Leocrates; treason, for he abandoned the city to subjugation by the enemy; apostasy, for he played a coward’s part in freedom’s cause; sacrilege for the groves might be felled, the temples razed, as far as he was concerned; abomination, for the memorials of our fathers might be swept away and the hallowed observance abolished; desertion, for the nidering did not report for duty in the line. Where then is the man who will vote to clear him? Who is he that will show his sympathy with crime that shows malice aforethought? Is there a man so bereft of sense that he will set Leocrates free and so place his own security at the mercy of men who would abandon him? that out of pity for Leocrates he will take no pity on himself, when his choice may mean death at the hands of the foe? that by extending clemency to a traitor he will lay himself open to the retribution of heaven?

In support of our country, religion and laws I have pleaded this case, in righteousness and in fairness, indulging in no irrelevant abuse of the man and making no charges extraneous to the case. You must all be convinced that a vote for the acquittal of Leocrates is a vote for the conviction of the country; for in the life of nations subjugation is the death. Here stand the two urns; one for your undoing, one for your redemption: vote there for the disruption of the country, vote here for her security and prosperity. Think, men of Athens: the land and the trees are pleading, the harbors, the walls are entreating, the temples and shrines are in prayer. Save them. Make of Leocrates an example. One final declaration of my confidence: this pity that fills your hearts for the tears you look upon can never avail to pervert your loyalty to the law of the land, your devotion to the people of Athens.

aeschines

Aeschines, best known as an opponent of Demosthenes, was, in fact, a gallant solider, a man of much ability, and a really great orator. He was born in Attica, 389 b. c., five years before the birth of his famous rival, and died 314 b. c. His eloquence was of a high order, but his renown was tarnished by his defeat of Demosthenes in the contest on the proposition of Ctesiphon that Demosthenes should be awarded a golden crown for his patriotic services to the state. The speech delivered by Aeschines on that occasion was in many respects able, but he committed the grievous error of abusing his adversary and thus exposing his animosity.

Against Crowning Demosthenes. You see, Athenians, what preparations are on foot, what forces are arrayed, what appeals to the Assembly are being made by certain persons to prevent the proper and ordinary course of justice from having its effect in the city. For myself I came before you, first, with a firm belief in the immortal gods, next, with an abiding confidence in the laws and in you, convinced that intrigues will not more avail with you than these laws and the cause of justice.

I could indeed have fain desired that both in the Council of Five Hundred and in the Assembly the presiding officers had compelled conformity to established rules of debate, and that the laws had been enforced concerning the orderly deportment of public speakers which were laid down by Solon. It should thus have been permitted to the oldest citizens, as the laws prescribe, to ascend the platform decorously, and without tumult or annoyance, according to their experience, express their opinions upon what they regarded most advantageous to the city. Afterwards, each citizen in order of seniority should have in turn presented his independent views upon every question.

In this way it seems to me would the affairs of the city have been best conducted, and prosecutions have been reduced within the smallest compass. Since, however, the old recognized rules of procedure have been swept away, and certain men recklessly introduce illegal propositions, and certain others put them to the vote—men who have managed to secure the presidency, not by just and proper means, but taking possession of it by contrivance—it is brought to pass that if any other senator shall succeed in reaching the first place in due course of law and shall then attempt to obtain the result of your votes properly, such an one is denounced and impeached by the men who regard our government as no longer a common inheritance but as their own peculiar property. And when in this way, by reducing private citizens to servitude and by securing absolute power themselves, they have overthrown established legal judgments and have passed decrees according to the dictates of their passions, there shall be heard no longer that most beautiful and proper invitation of the herald, “Who desires to express his opinion, of citizens of fifty years of age and upwards, and afterwards, of all other in rotation?”

Thus neither the laws, nor the senators, nor the presidents, nor the presiding tribe itself a tenth part of the city, can control the indecent conduct of these orators.

Such being the case, and such the position in which the city is placed—and you must be convinced that this is so,—one part at least of the constitution, if I know anything of the matter, still survives—the right of prosecution for proposing unconstitutional measures. Should you destroy this right, or surrender it to those who will destroy it, I prophesy that you will have unconsciously given away to a few men almost our entire form of government. For you must surely know, Athenians, that but three forms of government exist, monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy: the two former are administered according to the feeling and opinions of those who are at the head of affairs, but republics repose upon the authority of law. Let no one of you, therefore, forget, but on the contrary let him lay it carefully to heart, that when he enters this tribunal for the trial of such an issue, on that day he is called upon to cast his vote upon his own right of free speech. Therefore was it that our old lawgivers placed in the forefront of the juror’s oath these words, “I will render a verdict according to law,” knowing well that when the laws were jealously observed by the city free institutions were safe.

Wherefore is it that, bearing these things in mind, you should hold in abhorrence all who commit unconstitutional acts, and that you should look upon no infraction of the constitution as small or unimportant, but treat all as of the gravest nature. Nor should you suffer any man to deprive you of this most vital right—neither the persuasions of the generals who for a long time past have been at work with certain of our orators to overthrow the constitution, nor the solicitations of strangers when those whose administration has been illegal have brought up hither to screen them from justice—but as each one of you would blush to quit the ranks in which he was stationed on the day of battle, so you should now blush at the thought of abandoning the post in which you are placed by the laws which are today the guardians of our institutions.

You must further bear in mind that your fellow citizens have now entrusted to your keeping the city itself in thus confiding the constitution to your charge; not only those of them who are here present intent upon the course of this trial, but those also who are necessarily absent upon their private business. If, therefore, holding in due regard these your fellow citizens, and remembering the oaths you have sworn and the laws you are living under, you should convict Ctesiphon for having introduced an unconstitutional bill false in terms and injurious to the city, overturn, Athenians, such unconstitutional enactments, confirm our free institutions, and punish the men who have been advising against the law and against the interests both of the State and of yourselves. If in this frame of mind you listen to the words which are about to be spoken, I well know that your verdict will be in accordance with justice and right, and that it will redound to the credit of yourselves and of the whole community.

I have thus far spoken about the general nature of this prosecution, and, I hope, with sufficient fairness. I now desire to speak briefly about the laws which have been passed in regard to persons who are accountable to the state, against which the decree of Ctesiphon offends.

In former times it happened that men who had exercised the highest employment and had been entrusted with the management of the public revenues, although guilty therein of the grossest corruption, would, by conniving with certain orators both in the Senate and the General Assembly, anticipate all examination into their accounts by means of votes of condemnation and proclamations of thanks in their behalf. Not only were citizens who attempted to bring them to justice for the state of their accounts in this way much perplexed, but the jurors themselves who were to try the cause were reduced to a grave dilemma. And many of these officials, although clearly proved to have embezzled public moneys in the most flagrant way, were yet permitted to leave the judgment-seat unpunished. And not unreasonably. For the jurors were ashamed, it seems to me, that it should appear the same man in the same city, and perchance in the very same year, who had been proclaimed in the Assemblies as worthy of being honored with a golden crown by the people for his virtue and uprightness, should a short time afterwards be brought to trial, and go forth from our courts of justice convicted of fraud in his accounts. So that the jurors were compelled, as it were, to give their verdict not so much upon the crime which was proven, as in regard to the honor of the city itself. And hence it was that one of our lawgivers provided for this very emergency by propounding a law—and a most admirable one it was—by which the coronation of all persons liable to account was distinctly forbidden. Notwithstanding the passage of this law, evasions of it more efficacious than the law itself have been invented, in ignorance of which, unless they be explained to you, you would be entirely deceived. This decree for the crowning of officials while they were still liable to account were introduced contrary to law by men not ill disposed by nature—if any one can be well-disposed who thus acts illegally—and by way of a slave to propriety they added to the propositions the words, “after they shall have rendered a correct account of their administration.” The city, however, was injured in the same way by this evasion, since the accounting was equally forestalled by the panegyrics and votes of crowns; and the propounder of the decree, by thus qualifying it, admitted to his discredit that at the time of its proposal he was conscious of an intended infraction of the law. But this fellow Ctesiphon, men of Athens, at one bound clears both law and qualification; for by his decree he asks that Demosthenes, while actually in office, before he has furnished any explanations or delivered in any accounts, shall be crowned by the people! . . .

You have just heard, Athenians, that the law directs the proclamation of one who is crowned by the people to be made in the Pnyx at an Assembly of the people, and nowhere else. Ctesiphon, however, not only transgresses the law by directing it to be done in the theatre, thus changing the place from that where the Athenians hold their Assembly, but he commands it to take place, not before the people alone, but in presence of the assembled Greeks, that they may see along with us what manner of man it is whom we then honor. . . .

Since, then, it is directed that those honored with a crown by the Senate shall be proclaimed in the Senate Chamber, and those crowned by the people in the Assembly, and it is interdicted to those crowned by the tribes or demes to be so proclaimed in the theatre, that no one by mean solicitations for crowns and proclamations should thereby obtain a spurious honor, and it is moreover forbidden by the law that proclamation shall be made by any one unless by the Senate, the people, the tribes, and the demes; if all these be excepted, what remains but the case of crowns conferred by foreign states? That this is manifestly so, I shall convince you by the laws themselves. . . .

Besides it is enjoined by law that the crown of gold which shall be proclaimed in the theatre in behalf of any one shall be taken from him and consecrated to Athens. Who would dare, however, from this, to accuse the people of Athens of a sordid economy? Never was there a city, never an individual, so destitute of generosity, as in the same moment to proclaim, take away, and consecrate a crown of their own bestowal! This consecration is doubtless directed to be made because the crown has been conferred by strangers, that no man may estimate a foreign honor as of greater value than his country, and may not be tempted in consequence to fail in his devotion to her. The crown conferred by the people and proclaimed in the Assembly is never consecrated, but on the contrary is permitted to be enjoyed, not only by its recipient, but by his descendants, that by preserving this memorial in their family they may never become ill-disposed to their country. And this is the reason why the lawmaker has prohibited the proclamation in the theatre of a crown conferred by strangers unless authorized by a decree of the people; the foreign city which may desire so to honor one of your citizens shall first through an embassy demand it of the people; and thus he who is crowned shall owe higher debt of gratitude to you who have permitted the proclamation than to those who have presented him with the crown itself. . . .

I may here foretell the part that he will play when he sees that you are in earnest in your endeavor to hold him to his true course. Ctesiphon will introduce that arch-impostor, that plunderer of the public, who has cut the constitution into shreds; the man who can weep more easily than others laugh, and from whom perjury flows in ready words!

He can, I doubt not, change his tone, and pass from tears to gross abuse, insult the citizens who are listening outside, and cry out that the partisans of oligarchical power, detested by the hand of truth, are pressing round the prosecutor to support him, while the friends of the constitution are rallying round the accused. And when he dares to speak so, answer thus his seditious menaces: “What, Demosthenes, had the heroes who brought back our fugitive citizens from Phyle been like you, our democratic form of government had ceased to exist! Those illustrious men saved the state exhausted by great civil disorders in pronouncing that wise and admirable sentence ‘oblivion of all offenses.’ But you, more careful of your rounded periods than of the city’s safety, are willing to reopen all her wounds.”

When this perjurer shall seek for credit by taking refuge in his oaths, remind him that to the foresworn man who asks belief in them from those he has deceived so often, of two things one is needful, neither of which exists for Demosthenes; he must either get new gods, or an audience not the same. And to his tears and wordy lamentations, when he shall ask, “Whither shall I fly, Athenians should you cast me out, I have not where to rest,” reply “Where shall the people seek refuge, Demosthenes; what allies, what resources, what reserve have you prepared for us? We all see what you have provided for yourself. When you have left the city, you shall not stop, as you would seem, to dwell in Piraeus, but, quickly thence departing, you shall visit other lands with all the appointments for your journey provided through your corruption from Persian gold or public plunder.”

But why at all these tears, these cries, this voice of lamentation? Is it not Ctesiphon who is accused, and even for him may not the penalty be moderated by you? Thou pleadest not, Demosthenes, either for thy life, thy fortune, or thy honor! Why is he then so disquieted? About crowns of gold and proclamations in the theatre against the laws: the man who, were the people so insensate or so forgetful of the present as to wish to crown him in this time of public distress, should himself step forth and say, “Men of Athens, while I accept the crown, I disapprove the proclamation of the honor at a time like this: it should not be in regard to things for which the state is now mourning and while it is in the depth of grief.” Would not a man whose life was really upright so speak out; only a knave who assumes the garb of virtue would talk as you do?

Let none of you, by Hercules, be apprehensive lest this high-souled citizen, this distinguished warrior, from loss of this reward should on his return home take his life. The man who rates so low your consideration as to make a thousand incisions on that impure and mortgaged head which Ctesiphon proposes against all law to honor with a crown, makes money of his wounds by bringing actions for the effects of his own premeditated blows. Yes, that crown of his so often battered, that perhaps even now it bears upon it the marks of Meidias’ anger, that crown which brings its owner in an income, serves both for revenue and head! . . .

And can it be that he whom you have thought worthy by your decree, of the honor of this crown, is so unknown to the public which has been so largely benefited by him that you must procure assistance to speak in his behalf? Ask of the jurors whether they know Chabrias, Iphicrates and Timotheus, and learn from them why they have honored and erected statues to them? Will they not proclaim with one voice that they rendered honor to Chabrias for his naval victory near Naxos; to Iphicrates for having cut off a Spartan corps; to Timotheus for his expedition to Corcyra; to other heroes for their many glorious achievements? Ask them now why Demosthenes is to be rewarded. Is it for his venality, for his cowardice, for his base desertion of his post in the day of battle? In honoring such an one will you not dishonor yourselves and the gallant men who have laid down their lives for you in the field? whose plaintive remonstrances against the crowing of this man you may almost seem to hear. Strange, passing strange, does it seem, Athenians, that you banish from the limits of the state the stocks and stones the senseless implements which have unwittingly caused death by casualty; that the hand which has inflicted the wound of self-destruction is buried apart from the rest of the body; and that yet you can render honor to this Demosthenes, by whose counsels this last fatal expedition in which your troops were slaughtered and destroyed was planned! The victims of this massacre are thus insulted, in their graves, and the survivors outraged and discouraged when they behold the only reward of patriotic valor to be an unremembered death and a disregarded memory! And last and most important of all consequences, what answer shall you make to your children when they ask you after what examples they shall frame their lives? Is it not, men of Athens—you know it well—is it not the palaestra, the seminary, or the study of the liberal arts alone, which form and educate our youth. Of vastly greater value are the lessons taught by these honors publicly conferred. If a man proclaimed and crowned in the theatre for virtue, courage, and patriotism when his irregular and vicious life belies the honor, the young who witness this are perverted and corrupted! In a profligate and a pander, such as Ctesiphon, sentenced and punished, an instructive lesson is given to the rising generation. Has a citizen voted in opposition to justice and propriety, and does he, on his return to his house, attempt to instruct his son; disobedience surely follows, and the lesson is justly looked upon as importunate and out of place. Pronounce your verdict then, not as simple jurors, but as guardians of the State, whose decision can be justified in the eyes of their absent fellow citizens who shall demand a strict account of it. Know ye not, Athenians, that the people is judged by the ministers whom it honors; will it not be disgraceful, then, that you shall be thought to resemble the baseness of Demosthenes, and not the virtues of your ancestors?

How, then, is this reproach to be avoided? It must be to distrusting the men who usurp the character of upright and patriotic citizens, which their entire conduct gainsays. Good will and zeal for the public interest can be readily assumed in name: oftentimes those who have the smallest pretensions to them by their conduct seize upon and take refuge behind these honorable titles. When you find, then, an orator desirous of being crowned by strangers and of being proclaimed in presence of the Greeks, let him, as the law requires in other cases, prove the claim which he asserts by the evidence of a life free from reproach, and a wise and blameless course. If he be unable to do this, do not confirm to him the honors which he claims, and try at least to preserve the remnant of that public authority which is fast escaping from you. Even now, strange as it should seem, are not the Senate and the people passed over and neglected, and despatches and deputations received by private citizens, not from obscure individuals, but from the most important personages of Europe and Asia? Far from denying that for which under our laws the punishment is death, it is made the subject of open public boast; the correspondence is exhibited and read; and you are invited by some to look upon them as the guardians of the constitution, while others demand to be rewarded as the saviors of the country. The people, meanwhile, as if struck with the decrepitude of age and broken down by their misfortunes, preserve the republic only in name and abandon to others the reality of authority. You thus retire from the Assembly, not as from a public deliberation, but as from an entertainment given at common cost where each guest carries away with him a share of the remnants of the feast. That I speak forth the words of truth and soberness, hearken to which I am about to say.

It distresses me to recur so often to our public calamities, but when a private citizen undertook to sail only to Samos to get out of the way, he was condemned to death on the same day by the Council of Areopagus as a traitor to his country. Another private citizen, unable to bear the fear which oppressed him, and sailing in consequence to Rhodes, was recently denounced for this and escaped punishment by an equal division of the votes. Had a single one been cast on the other side, he would have been either banished or put to death. Compare these instances with the present one. An orator, the cause of all our misfortunes, who abandons his post in time of war and flies from the city, proclaims himself worthy of crowns and proclamations. Will you not drive such a man from your midst as the common scourge of Greece; or will you not rather seize upon and punish him as a piratical braggart who steers his course through our government by dint of phrases?

Consider, moreover, the occasion on which you are called upon to record your verdict. In a few days the Pythian Games will be celebrated, and the assembled Greeks will all be reunited in your city. She has already suffered much disparagement from the policy of Demosthenes: should you now crown him by your votes you will seem to share the same opinion as the men who wish to break the common peace. By adopting the contrary course you will free the state from any such suspicion.

Let your deliberations, then, be in accord with the interests of the city: it is for her, and not a foreign community, you are now to decide. Do not throw away your honors, but confer them with discernment upon high-minded citizens and deserving men. Search with both eyes and ears as to who they are among you who are today standing forth in Demosthenes’ behalf. Are they the companions of his youth who shared with him the manly toils of the chase or the robust exercises of the palaestra? No, by the Olympian Jove, he has passed not his life in hunting the wild boar or in the preparation of his body for fatigue and hardship, but in the exercise of chicane at the cost of the substance of men of wealth!

Examine well his vainglorious boasting when he shall dare to say that by his embassy he withdrew the Byzantines from the cause of Philip; that by his eloquence he detached from him the Acarnanians, and so transported the Thebans as to confirm them upon your side. He believes indeed that you have reached such a point of credulity that you are ready to be persuaded by him of anything he may choose to utter, as if you had here in your midst the goddess Persuasion herself, and not an artful demagogue.

And when, at the close of his harangue, Demosthenes shall invite the partakers of his corruption to press round and defend him, let there be present in your imagination upon the platform from which I am now speaking the venerable forms of the ancient benefactors of the state, arrayed in all their virtue, to oppose these men’s insolence. I see among them the wise Solon, that upright lawgiver who founded our popular government upon the soundest principles of legislation, gently advising you with his native moderation not to place your oaths and the law under the control of this man’s discourse. And Aristides, by whose equity the imposts upon the Greeks were regulated, whose daughters, left in poverty through his incorruptible integrity, were endowed by the state, Aristides is seen complaining of this outrage upon justice, and demanding whether the descendants of the men who fought worthy of death and actually banished from their city and country Arthmius the Zelian, then living in their midst and enjoying the sacred rights of hospitality for merely bringing Persian gold into Greece, are now going to cover themselves with disgrace by honoring with a crown of gold the man who has not simply brought higher the stranger’s money, but is enjoying here the price of his treason. And Themistocles and the men who fell at Marathon and Plataea, think you that they are insensible to what is taking place? Do not their voices cry out from the very tombs in mournful protests against this perverse rendering of honor to one who has dared to proclaim his union with the barbarians against the Greeks?

As for me, O Earth and Sun, O Virtue, and thou, Intelligence, by whose light we are enabled to discern and to separate good from evil, as for me, I have directed my efforts against this wrong. I have lifted up my voice against this injustice! If I have spoken well and loftily against this crime, I have spoken as I should have wished; but if my utterances have been feeble and ill-directed, still they have been according to the measure of my strength. It is for you, men of Athens and jurors, to weigh carefully both what has been spoken and what has been left unsaid, and to render such a decision as shall not only be upright but for the advantage of the State.

demosthenes

Demosthenes, considered the greatest of the Greek orators, and consequently the greatest orator in the history of the world, as oratory flourished nowhere as it did in Greece between 500 and 300 b. c., was born about 383 b. c., and died by poison administered to himself, after being captured by Macedonian troops, 322 b. c.

“He [Demosthenes] seems to have lacked by nature all the physical qualifications of a great orator, and to have acquired them solely by indefatigable self-discipline and training. At about the age of thirty he made his first appearance as a politician; he continued to practice as a logographer (speech-writer) until he was about forty, by which time he had made a fortune sufficient to enable him to devote himself exclusively to political life until he died, at the age of sixty-one.”

Demosthenes studied under Isaeus and profited by the work previously done by the great rhetoricians and orators, Lysias, Isocrates, Antiphon, and others. Demosthenes’ political morality was of the highest, and this was one of the main sources of his great strength.

Speech of Demosthenes in Defense of Ctesiphon, Commonly known as the “Oration on the Crown.” I begin, men of Athens, by praying to every god and goddess that the same good-will, which I have ever cherished toward the commonwealth and all of you, may be requited to me on the present trial. I pray likewise—and this specially concerns yourselves, your religion, and your honor—that the gods may put it in your minds not to take counsel of my opponent touching the manner in which I am to be heard—that would, indeed, be cruel!—but of the laws and of your oath; wherein (besides the other obligations) it is prescribed that you shall hear both sides alike. This means, not only that you must pass no precondemnation, not only that you must extend your good-will equally to both, but also that you must allow the parties to adopt such order and course of defense as they severally choose and prefer.

Many advantages hath Aeschines over me on this trial; and two especially, men of Athens. First, my risk in the contest is not the same. It is assuredly not the same for me to forfeit your regard, as for my adversary not to succeed in his indictment. To me—but I will say nothing untoward at the outset of my address. The prosecution, however, is play to him. My second disadvantage is, that natural disposition of mankind to take pleasure in hearing invective and accusation, and to be annoyed by those who praise themselves. To Aeschines is assigned the part which gives pleasure; that which is (I may fairly say) offensive to all, is left for me. And if, to escape from this, I make no mention of what I have done, I shall appear to be without defense against his charges, without proof of my claims to honor; whereas, if I proceed to give an account of my conduct and measures, I shall be forced to speak frequently of myself. I will endeavor then to do so with all becoming modesty; what I am driven to by the necessity of the case will be fairly chargeable to my opponent, who has instituted such a prosecution.

I think, men of the jury, you will all agree that I, as well as Ctesiphon, am a party to this proceeding, and that it is a matter of no less concern to me. It is painful and grievous to be deprived of anything, especially by the act of one’s enemy; but your good-will and affection are the heaviest loss, precisely as they are the greatest prize to gain.

Such being the matters at stake in this cause, I conjure and implore you all alike, to hear my defense to the charge in that fair manner which the laws prescribe—laws, to which their author, Solon, a man friendly to you and to popular rights, thought that validity should be given, not only by the recording of them, but by the oath of you, the jurors; not that he distrusted you, as it appears to me, but, seeing that the charges and calumnies, wherein the prosecutor is powerful by being the first speaker, cannot be got over by the defendant, unless each of you jurors, observing his religious obligation, shall work with like favor receive the arguments of the last speaker, and lend an equal and impartial ear to both, before he determines upon the whole case.

As I am, it appears, on this day to render an account both of my private life and my public measures, I would fain, as in the outset, call upon the gods to my aid; and in your presence I implore them, first, that the good-will which I have ever cherished toward the commonwealth and all of you may be fully requited to me on the present trial; next, that they may direct you to such a decision upon this indictment as will conduce to your common honor, and to the good conscience of each individual.

Had Aeschines confined his charge to the subject of the prosecution, I, too, would have proceeded at once to my justification of the decree. But since he has wasted now fewer words in the discussion of other matters, in most of them calumniating me, I deem it both necessary and just, men of Athens, to begin by shortly adverting to these points, that none of you may be induced by extraneous arguments to shut your ears against my defense of the indictment.

To all his scandalous abuse of my private life, observe my plain and honest answer. If you know me to be such as he alleged—for I have lived nowhere else but among you—let not my voice be heard, however transcendent my statesmanship! Rise up this instant and condemn me! But if, in your opinion and judgment, I am far better and of better descent than my adversary; if (to speak without offense) I am not inferior, I or mine, to any respectable citizens; that give no credit to him for his other statements—it is plain they were all equally fictions—but to me let the same good-will, which you have uniformly exhibited upon many former trials, be manifested now. With all your malice, Aeschines, it was very simple to suppose that I should turn from the discussion of measures and policy to notice your scandal. I will do no such thing; I am not so crazed. Your lies and calumnies about my political life I will examine forthwith; for that loose ribaldry I shall have a word hereafter, if the jury desire to hear it.

The crimes whereof I am accused are many and grievous; for some of them the laws enact heavy—most severe penalties. The scheme of this present proceeding includes a combination of spiteful insolence, insult, railing, aspersion, and everything of the kind; while for the said charges and accusations, if they were true, the state has not the means of inflicting an adequate punishment, or anything like it. For it is not the right to debar another of access to the people and privilege of speech; moreover, to do so by way of malice and insult—by Heaven! is neither honest, nor constitutional, nor just. If the crimes which he saw me committing against the State were as heinous as he so tragically gave out, he ought to have enforced the penalties of the law against them at the time; if he saw me guilty of an impeachable offense, by impeaching and so bringing me to trial before you; if moving illegal decrees, by indicting me for them. For surely if he can prosecute Ctesiphon on my account, he would not have forborne to indict me myself, had he thought he could convict me. In short, whatever else he saw me doing to your prejudice, whether mentioned or not mentioned in his catalogue of slander, there are laws for such things, and punishments, and trials, and judgments, with sharp and severe penalties; all of which he might have enforced against me: and had he done so—had he thus pursued the proper method with me, his charges would have been consistent with his conduct. But now he has declined the straightforward and just course, avoided all proofs of guilt at the time, and after this long interval gets up, to play his part withal, a heap of accusation, ribaldry, and scandal. Then he arraigns me, but prosecutes the defendant. His hatred of me he makes the prominent part of the whole contest; yet, without having ever met me upon that ground, he openly seeks to deprive a third party of his privileges. Now, men of Athens, besides all the other arguments that may be urged in Ctesiphon’s behalf, this, methinks, may very fairly be alleged—that we should all try our own quarrel by ourselves; not leave our private dispute, and look what third party we can damage. That surely were the height of injustice.

It may appear, from what has been said, that all his charges are alike unjust and unfounded in truth; yet I wish to examine them separately, and especially his calumnies about the peace and the embassy, where he attributed to me the acts of himself and Philocrates. It is necessary also, and perhaps proper, men of Athens, to remind you how affairs stood at those times, that you may consider every single measure in reference to the occasion.

When the Phocian war had broken out—not through me, for I had not then commenced public life—you were in this position: you wished the Phocians to be saved, though you saw they were not acting right; and would have been glad for the Thebans to suffer anything, with whom for a just reason you were angry; for they had not borne with moderation their good fortune at Leuctra. The whole of Peloponnesus was divided: they that hated the Lacedaemonians were not powerful enough to destroy them; and they that ruled before by Spartan influence were not masters of the states: among them, as among the rest of the Greeks, there was a sort of unsettled strife and confusion. Philip, seeing this—it was not difficult to see—lavished bribes upon the traitors in every state, embroiled and stirred them all up against each other; and so, by the errors and follies of the rest, he was strengthening himself, and growing up to the ruin of all. But when every one saw that the then overbearing, but now unfortunate, Thebans, harassed by so long a war, must of necessity have recourse to you, Philip, to prevent this, and obstruct the union of the states, offered to you peace, to them succor. What helped him then almost to surprise you in a voluntary snare? The cowardice, shall I call it? or ignorance—or both—of the other Greeks, who while you were waging a long and incessant war—and that, too, for their common benefit, as the event has shown—assisted you neither with money nor men, nor anything else whatsoever. You, being justly and naturally offended with them, lent a willing ear to Philip.

The peace then granted was through such means brought about, not through me, as Aeschines calumniously charged. The criminal and corrupt practice of these men during the treaty will be found, on fair examination, to be the cause of our present condition. The whole matter am I for truth’s sake discussing and going through; for, let there appear to be ever so much criminality in these transactions, it is surely nothing to me. The first who spoke and mentioned the subject of peace was Aristodemus the actor; the seconder and mover, fellow-hireling for that purpose with the prosecutor, was Philocrates the Agnusian—your associate, Aeschines, not mine, though you should burst with lying. Their supporters—from whatever motives—I pass that by for the present—were Eubulus and Cephisophon. I had nothing to do with it.

Notwithstanding these facts, which I have stated exactly according to the truth, he ventured to assert—to such a pitch of impudence had he come—that I, besides being author of the peace, had prevented the country making it in a general council with the Greeks. Why, you—I know not what name you deserve!—when you saw me robbing the state of an advantage and connection so important as you described just now, did you ever express indignation? did you come forward to punish and proclaim what you now charge me with? If, indeed, I had been bribed by Philip to prevent the conjunction of the Greeks, it was your business not to be silent, but to cry out, to protest, and inform the people. But you never did so—your voice was never heard to such a purpose, and no wonder; for at that time no embassy had been sent to any of the Greeks—they had all been tested long before; and not a word of truth upon the subject has Aeschines spoken.

Besides, it is the country that he most traduces by his falsehoods. For, if you were at the same time calling on the Greeks to take arms and sending your own ambassadors to treat with Philip for peace, you were performing the part of an Eurybatus, not the act of a commonwealth, or of honest men. But it is false, it is false. For what purpose could ye have sent for them at that period? For peace? They all had it. For war? You were yourselves deliberating about peace. It appears, therefore, I was not the adviser or the author of the original peace; and none of his other calumnies against me are shown to be true.

Observe again, after the state had concluded the peace, what line of conduct each of us adopted. Hence you will understand who it was that coöperated in everything with Philip, who that acted in your behalf, and sought the advantage of the commonwealth.

I moved in the council, that our ambassadors should sail instantly for whatever place they heard Philip was in, and receive his oath: they would not, however, notwithstanding my resolution. What was the effect of this, men of Athens? I will explain. It was Philip’s interest that the interval before the oaths should be as long as possible; yours, that it should be as short. Why? Because you discontinued all your warlike preparations, not only from the day of swearing peace, but from the day you conceived hopes of it; a thing which Philip was from the beginning studious to contrive, believing—rightly enough—that whatever of your possessions he might take before the oath of ratification he should hold securely; as none would break the peace on such account. I, men of Athens, foreseeing and weighing these consequences, moved the decree, to sail for whatever place Philip was in, and receive his oath without delay; so that your allies, the Thracians, might be in possession of the places which Aeschines ridiculed just now (Serrium, Myrtium, and Ergisce), at the time of swearing the oaths; and that Philip might not become master of Thrace by securing the post of vantage, nor provide himself with plenty of money and troops to facilitate his further designs. Yet this decree he neither mentions nor reads; but reproaches me, because, as Councillor, I thought it proper to introduce the ambassadors. Why, what should I have done? Moved not to introduce men who were come for the purpose of conferring with you? or ordered the Manager not to assign them places at the theatre? They might have had places for their two obols, if the resolution had not been moved. Was it my duty to guard the petty interests of the state, and have sold our main interests like these men? Surely not. Take and read me this decree, which the prosecutor, knowing it well, passed over. Read!

The Decree

“In the Archonship of Mnesiphilus, on the thirteenth of Hecatombaeon, in the presidency of the Pandionian tribe, Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes of Paeania, moved: Whereas, Philip hath sent ambassadors for peace, and hath agreed upon articles of treaty, it is resolved by the Council and people of Athens, in order that the peace voted in the first assembly may be ratified, to choose forthwith from the whole body of Athenians five ambassadors; and that the persons elected do repair, without any delay, wheresoever they shall ascertain that Philip is, and as speedily as may be exchange oaths with him, according to the articles agreed on between him and the Athenian people, comprehending the allies of either party. For ambassadors were chosen, Eubulus of Anaphlystus, Aeschines of Cothocidae, Cephisophon of Rhamnus, Democrates of Phyla, Cleon of Cothocidae.”

Notwithstanding that I had passed this decree for the advantage of Athens, not that of Philip, our worthy ambassadors so little regarded it as to sit down in Macedonia three whole months, until Philip returned from Thrace after entirely subjugating the country; although they might in ten days, or rather in three or four, have reached the Hellespont and saved the fortresses, by receiving his oath before he reduced them: for he would never have touched them on our presence, or we should not have sworn him; and thus he would have lost the peace, and not have obtained both the peace and the fortresses.

Such was the first trick of Philip, the first corrupt act of these accursed miscreants, in the embassy: for which I avow that I was and am and ever will be at war and variance with them. But mark another and still greater piece of villainy immediately after. When Philip had sworn to the peace, having secured Thrace through these men disobeying my decree, he again bribes them not to leave Macedonia until he had got all ready for his expedition against the Phocians. His fear was, if they reported to you his design and preparation for marching, you might sally forth, sail round with your galleys to Thermopylae as before, and block up the strait; his desire, that, the moment you received the intelligence from them, he should have passed Thermopylae, and you be unable to do anything. And in such terror and anxiety was Philip, lest, notwithstanding he had gained these advantages, if you voted succor before the destruction of the Phocians, his enterprise should fail, he hires this despicable fellow, no longer in common with the other ambassadors, but by himself individually, to make that statement and report to you, by which everything was lost.

I conjure and beseech you, men of Athens, throughout the trial to remember this: that, if Aeschines in his charge had not travelled out of the indictment, neither would I have spoken a word irrelevant; but since he has resorted to every species both of accusation and calumny, it is necessary for me to reply briefly to each of his charges.

What, then, were the statements made by Aeschines, through which everything was lost? That you should not be alarmed by Philip’s having passed Thermopylae—that all would be as you desired, if you kept quiet; and in two or three days you would hear he as their friend to whom he had come as an enemy, and their enemy to whom he had come as a friend—it was not words that cemented attachments (such was his solemn phrase), but identity of interest; and it was the interest of all alike, Philip, the Phocians, and you, to be relieved from the harshness and insolence of the Thebans. His assertions were heard by some with pleasure, on account of the hatred which then subsisted against the Thebans. But what happened directly, almost immediately, afterwards? The wretched Phocians were destroyed, their cities demolished; you that kept quiet, and trusted to Aeschines, were shortly bringing in your effects out of the country, while Aeschines received gold; and yet more—while you got nothing but your enmity with the Thebans and Thessalians, Philip won their gratitude for what he had done. To prove what I say, read me the decree of Callisthenes, and the letter of Philip, from both of which these particulars will be clear to you.

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These and like measures, Aeschines, are what become an honorable citizen (by their success—O earth and heaven! we should have been the greatest of people incontestably, and deserved to be so: even under their failure the result is glory, and no one blames Athens or her policy; all condemn fortune that so ordered things); but never will he desert the interests of the commonwealth, nor hire himself to her adversaries, and study the enemy’s advantage, instead of his country’s; nor on a man who has courage to advise and propose measures worthy of the state, and resolution to persevere in them, will he cast an evil eye, and, if any one privately offends him, remember and treasure it up; no, nor keep himself in a criminal and treacherous retirement, as you so often do. There is indeed a retirement just and beneficial to the state, such as you, the bulk of my countrymen, innocently enjoy; that, however, is not the retirement of Aeschines; far from it. Withdrawing himself from public life when he pleases (and that is often), he watches for the moment when you are tired of a constant speaker, or when some reverse of fortune has befallen you, or anything untoward has happened (and many are the casualties of human life); at such a crisis he springs up an orator, rising from his retreat like a wind; in full voice, with words and phrases collected, he rolls them out audibly and breathlessly, to no advantage or good purpose whatsoever, but to the detriment of some or other of his fellow-citizens and to the general disgrace.

Yet from this labor and diligence, Aeschines, if it proceeded from an honest heart, solicitous for your country’s welfare, the fruits should have been rich and noble and profitable to all—alliances of states, supplies of money, conveniences of commerce, enactment of useful laws, opposition to our declared enemies. All such things were looked for in former times; and many opportunities did the past afford for a good man and true to show himself; during which time you are nowhere to be found, neither first, second, third, fourth, fifth, nor sixth—nor in any rank at all—certainly in no service by which your country was exalted. For what alliance has come to the state by your procurement? What succors, what acquisition of good will or credit? What embassy or agency is there of yours, by which the reputation of the country has been increased? What concern, domestic, Hellenic, or foreign, of which you have had the management, has improved under it? What galleys? what ammunition? what arsenals? what repair of walls? what cavalry? What in the world are you good for? What assistance in money have you ever given, either to the rich or the poor, out of public spirit or liberality? None. But, good sir, if there is nothing of this, there is at all events zeal and loyalty. Where? when? You infamous fellow! Even at a time when all who ever spoke upon the platform gave something for the public safety, and last Aristonicus gave the sum which he had amassed to retrieve his franchise, you neither came forward nor contributed a mite—not from inability—no! for you have inherited above five talents from Philo, your wife’s father, and you had a subscription of two talents from the chairmen of the Boards for what you did to cut up the navy law. But, that I may not go from one thing to another and lose sight of the question, I pass this by. That it was not poverty prevented your contributing, already appears: it was, in fact, your anxiety to do nothing against those to whom your political life is subservient. On what occasion, then, do you show your spirit? When do you shine out? When aught is to be spoken against your countrymen!—then it is you are splendid in voice, perfect in memory, an admirable actor, a tragic Theocrines.

You mention the good men of olden times; and you are right to do so. Yet it is hardly fair, O Athenians, that he should get the advantage of that respect which you have for the dead, to compare and contrast me with them—me who am living among you; for what mortal is ignorant that toward the living there exists always more or less of ill will, whereas the dead are no longer hated even by an enemy? Such being human nature, am I to be tried and judged by the standard of my predecessors? Heaven forbid! It is not just or equitable, Aeschines. Let me be compared with you, or any persons you like of your party who are still alive. And consider this—whether it is more honorable and better for the state, that because of the services of a former age, prodigious though they are beyond all power of expression, these of the present generation should be unrequited and spurned, or that all who give proof of their good intentions should have their share of honor and regard from the people? Yet indeed—if I must say so much—my politics and principles, if considered fairly, will be found to resemble those of the illustrious ancients, and to have had the same objects in view, while yours resemble those of their calumniators: for it is certain there were persons in those times who ran down the living, and praised people dead and gone, with a malignant purpose like yourself.

Two things, men of Athens, are characteristic of a well-disposed citizen: so may I speak of myself and give the least offense: In authority, his constant aim should be the dignity and pre-eminence of the commonwealth; in all times and circumstances his spirit should be loyal. This depends upon nature; power and might upon other things. Such a spirit, you will find, I have ever sincerely cherished. Only see, when my person was demanded—when they brought Amphictyonic suits against me—when they menaced—when they promised—when they set these miscreants like wild beasts upon me—never in any way have I abandoned my affection for you. From the very beginning I chose an honest and straightforward course in politics, to support the honor, the power, the glory of my fatherland, these to exalt, in these to have my being. I do not walk about the market place gay and cheerful because the stranger has prospered, holding out my right hand and congratulating those who I think will report it yonder, and on any news of our own success shudder and groan and stoop to the earth, like these impious men, who rail at Athens, as if in so doing they did not rail at themselves; who look abroad, and if the foreigner thrives by the distress of Greece, are thankful for it, and say we should keep him so thriving all the time.

Never, O ye gods, may those wishes be confirmed by you! If possible, inspire even in these men a better sense and feeling! But if they are indeed incurable, destroy them by themselves; exterminate them on land and sea; and for the rest of us, grant that we may speedily be released from our present fears, and enjoy a lasting deliverance.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian orations.—Macaulay’s Essay, Athenian Orators

[2]The rest of the column is hopelessly mutilated.

[3]The rest of the column is mutilated.

[4]The remainder of this column and the whole of the next are either lost or so mutilated as to be unintelligible.

[5]When the next continuous passage is reached the speaker has quitted the direct issue and is attacking the political conduct of his adversary.

[6]Half a column is hopelessly mutilated here.