(384-322 B.C.)
BY ROBERT SHARP
DEMOSTHENES
he lot of Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, was cast in evil times. The glorious days of his country's brilliant political pre-eminence among Grecian States, and of her still more brilliant pre-eminence as a leader and torch-bearer to the world in its progress towards enlightenment and freedom, were well-nigh over. In arms she had been crushed by the brute force of Sparta. But this was not her deepest humiliation; she had indeed risen again to great power, under the leadership of generals and statesmen in whom something of the old-time Athenian spirit still persisted; but the duration of that power had been brief. The deepest humiliation of a State is not in the loss of military prestige or of material resources, but in the degeneracy of its citizens, in the overthrow and scorn of high ideals; and so it was in Athens at the time of Demosthenes's political activity.
The Athenians had become a pampered, ease-loving people. They still cherished a cheap admiration for the great achievements of their fathers. Stirring appeals to the glories of Marathon and Salamis would arouse them to—pass patriotic resolutions. Any suggestion of self-sacrifice, of service on the fleet or in the field, was dangerous. A law made it a capital offense to propose to use, even in meeting any great emergency, the fund set aside to supply the folk with amusements. They preferred to hire mercenaries to undergo their hardships and to fight their battles; but they were not willing to pay their hirelings. The commander had to find pay for his soldiers in the booty taken from their enemies; or failing that, by plundering their friends. It must be admitted, however, that the patriots at home were always ready and most willing to try, to convict, and to punish the commanders upon any charge of misdemeanor in office.
There were not wanting men of integrity and true patriotism, and of great ability, as Isocrates and Phocion, who accepted as inevitable the decline of the power of Athens, and advocated a policy of passive non-interference in foreign affairs, unless it were to take part in a united effort against Persia. But the mass of the people, instead of offering their own means and their bodies to the service of their country, deemed it rather the part of the State to supply their needs and their amusements. They considered that they had performed, to the full, their duty as citizens when they had taken part in the noisy debates of the Assembly, or had sat as paid jurymen in the never-ending succession of court procedures of this most litigious of peoples. Among men even in their better days not callous to the allurements of bribes judiciously administered, it was a logical sequence that corruption should now pervade all classes and conditions.
Literature and art, too, shared the general decadence, as it ever must be, since they always respond to the dominant ideals of a time and a people. To this general statement the exception must be noted that philosophy, as represented by Plato and Aristotle, and oratory, as represented by a long succession of Attic orators, had developed into higher and better forms. The history of human experience has shown that philosophy often becomes more subtle and more profound in times when men fall away from their ancient high standards, and become shaken in their old beliefs. So oratory attains its perfect flower in periods of the greatest stress and danger, whether from foreign foes or from internal discord. Both these forms of utterance of the active human intellect show, in their highest attainment, the realization of imminent emergency and the effort to point out a way of betterment and safety.
Not only the condition of affairs at home was full of portent of coming disaster. The course of events in other parts of Greece and in the barbarian kingdom of Macedon seemed all to be converging to one inevitable result,—the extinction of Hellenic freedom. When a nation or a race becomes unfit to possess longer the most precious of heritages, a free and honorable place among nations, then the time and the occasion and the man will not be long wanting to co-operate with the internal subversive force in consummating the final catastrophe. "If Philip should die," said Demosthenes, "the Athenians would quickly make themselves another Philip."
Throughout Greece, mutual jealousy and hatred among the States, each too weak to cope with a strong foreign foe, prevented such united action as might have made the country secure from any barbarian power; and that at a time when it was threatened by an enemy far more formidable than had been Xerxes with all his millions.
The Greeks at first entirely underrated the danger from Philip and the Macedonians. They had, up to this time, despised these barbarians. Demosthenes, in the third Philippic, reproaches his countrymen with enduring insult and outrage from a vile barbarian out of Macedon, whence formerly not even a respectable slave could be obtained. It is indeed doubtful whether the world has ever seen a man, placed in a position of great power, more capable of seizing every opportunity and of using every agency, fair or foul, for accomplishing his ambitious purposes, than was Philip of Macedon. The Greeks were most unfortunate in their enemy.
Philip understood the Greek people thoroughly. He had received his early training among them while a hostage at Thebes. He found in their petty feuds, in their indolence and corruptibility, his opportunity to carry into effect his matured plans of conquest. His energy never slept; his influence was ever present. When he was far away, extending his boundaries among the barbarians, his money was still active in Athens and elsewhere. His agents, often among the ablest men in a community, were busy using every cunning means at the command of the wonderful Greek ingenuity to conceal the danger or to reconcile the fickle people to a change that promised fine rewards for the sale of their liberty. Then he began to trim off one by one the outlying colonies and dependencies of the Greek States. His next step was to be the obtaining of a foothold in Greece proper.
The chief obstacle to Philip's progress was Athens, degenerate as she was, and his chief opponent in Athens was Demosthenes. This Philip understood very well; but he treated both the city and the great statesman always with a remarkable leniency. More than once Athens, inflamed by Demosthenes, flashed into her old-time energy and activity, and stayed the Macedonian's course; as when, in his first bold march towards the heart of Greece, he found himself confronted at Thermopylæ by Athenian troops; and again when prompt succor from Athens saved Byzantium for the time. But the emergency once past, the ardor of the Athenians died down as quickly as it had flamed up.
The Social War (357-355 B.C.) left Athens stripped almost bare of allies, and was practically a victory for Philip. The Sacred War (357-346 B.C.) between Thebes and Phocis, turning upon an affront offered to the Delphian god, gave Philip the eagerly sought-for opportunity of interfering in the internal affairs of Greece. He became the successful champion of the god, and received as his reward a place in the great Amphictyonic Council. He thus secured recognition of his claims to being a Greek, since none but Greeks might sit in this council. He had, moreover, in crushing the Phocians, destroyed a formidable power of resistance to his plans.
Such were the times and such the conditions in which Demosthenes entered upon his strenuous public life. He was born most probably in 384 B.C., though some authorities give preference to 382 B.C. as the year of his birth. He was the son of Demosthenes and Cleobule. His father was a respectable and wealthy Athenian citizen, a manufacturer of cutlery and upholstering. His mother was the daughter of Gylon, an Athenian citizen resident in the region of the Crimea.
Misfortune fell early upon him. At the age of seven he was left fatherless. His large patrimony fell into the hands of unprincipled guardians. Nature seems almost maliciously to have concentrated in him a number of blemishes, any one of which might have checked effectually the ambition of any ordinary man to excel in the profession Demosthenes chose for himself. He was not strong of body, his features were sinister, and his manner was ungraceful,—a grievous drawback among a people with whom physical beauty might cover a multitude of sins, and physical imperfections were a reproach.
He seems to have enjoyed the best facilities in his youth for training his mind, though he complains that his teachers were not paid by his guardians; and he is reported to have developed a fondness for oratory at an early age. In his maturing years, he was taught by the great lawyer, Isæus; and must often have listened to the orator and rhetorician Isocrates, if he was not indeed actually instructed by him. When once he had determined to make himself an orator, he set himself to work with immense energy to overcome the natural disadvantages that stood in the way of his success. By hard training he strengthened his weak voice and lungs; it is related that he cured himself of a painful habit of stammering; and he subjected himself to the most vigorous course of study preparatory to his profession, cutting himself off from all social enjoyments.
His success as an orator, however, was not immediate. He tasted all the bitterness of failure on more than one occasion; but after temporary discouragement he redoubled his efforts to correct the faults that were made so distressingly plain to him by the unsparing but salutary criticism of his audience. Without doubt, these conflicts and rebuffs of his earlier years served to strengthen and deepen the moral character of Demosthenes, as well as to improve his art. They contributed to form a man capable of spending his whole life in unflagging devotion to a high purpose, and that in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers. The dominant purpose of his life was the preservation of the freedom of the Greek States from the control of any foreign power, and the maintenance of the pre-eminent position of Athens among these States. In this combination of a splendid intellect, an indomitable will, and a great purpose, we find the true basis of Demosthenes's greatness.
When at the age of eighteen he came into the wreck of his patrimony, he at once began suit against Aphobos, one of his unfaithful guardians. He conducted his case himself. So well did he plead his cause that he received a verdict for a large amount. He seems, however, owing to the trickery of his opponent, never to have recovered the money. He became now a professional writer of speeches for clients in private suits of every kind, sometimes appearing in court himself as advocate.
In 355-354 B.C. he entered upon his career as public orator and statesman. He had now found his field of action, and till the end of his eventful life he was a most prominent figure in the great issues that concerned the welfare of Athens and of Greece. He was long unquestionably the leading man among the Athenians. By splendid ability as orator and statesman he was repeatedly able to thwart the plans of the traitors in the pay of Philip, even though they were led by the adept and eloquent Æschines. His influence was powerful in the Peloponnesus, and he succeeded, in 338 B.C., in even uniting the bitter hereditary enemies Thebes and Athens for one final, desperate, but unsuccessful struggle against the Macedonian power.
Demosthenes soon awoke to the danger threatening his country from the barbarian kingdom in the north, though not even he understood at first how grave was the danger. The series of great speeches relating to Philip—the First Philippic; the three Olynthiacs, 'On the Peace,' 'On the Embassy,' 'On the Chersonese'; the Second and Third Philippics—-show an increasing intensity and fire as the danger became more and more imminent. These orations were delivered in the period 351-341 B.C.
When the cause of Greek freedom had been overwhelmed at Chæronea, in the defeat of the allied Thebans and Athenians, Demosthenes, who had organized the unsuccessful resistance to Philip, still retained the favor of his countrymen, fickle as they were. With the exception of a short period of disfavor, he practically regulated the policy of Athens till his death in 322 B.C.
In 336 B.C., on motion of Ctesiphon, a golden crown was voted to Demosthenes by the Senate, in recognition of certain eminent services and generous contributions from his own means to the needs of the State. The decree was not confirmed by the Assembly, owing to the opposition of Æschines, who gave notice that he would bring suit against Ctesiphon for proposing an illegal measure. The case did not come up for trial, however, till 330 B.C., six years later. (The reason for this delay has never been clearly revealed.)
When Ctesiphon was summoned to appear, it was well understood that it was not he but Demosthenes who was in reality to be tried, and that the public and private record of the latter would be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny. On that memorable occasion, people gathered from all over Greece to witness the oratorical duel of the two champions—for Demosthenes was to reply to Æschines. The speech of Æschines was a brilliant and bitter arraignment of Demosthenes; but so triumphant was the reply of the latter, that his opponent, in mortification, went into voluntary exile. The speech of Demosthenes 'On the Crown' has been generally accepted by ancients and moderns as the supreme attainment in the oratory of antiquity.
It is evident that a man the never-swerving champion of a cause which demanded the greatest sacrifice from a people devoted to self-indulgence, the never-sleeping opponent of the hirelings of a foreign enemy, and a persistent obstacle to men of honest conviction who advocated a policy different from that which seemed best to him, would of necessity bring upon himself bitter hostility and accusations of the most serious character. And such was the case. Demosthenes has been accused of many crimes and immoralities, some of them so different in character as to be almost mutually exclusive. The most serious charge is that of receiving a bribe from Harpalus, the absconding treasurer of Alexander. He was tried upon this charge, convicted, fined fifty talents, and thrown into prison. Thence he escaped to go into a miserable exile.
How far and how seriously the character of Demosthenes is compromised by this and other attacks, it is not possible to decide to the satisfaction of all. The results of the contest in regard to the crown and the trial in the Harpalus matter were very different; but the verdict of neither trial, even if they were not conflicting, could be accepted as decisive. To me, the evidence,—weighed as we weigh other evidence, with a just appreciation of the source of the charges, the powerful testimony of the man's public life viewed as a whole, and the lofty position maintained in the face of all odds among a petulant people whom he would not flatter, but openly reproved for their vices,—the evidence, I say, read in this light justifies the conclusion that the orator was a man of high moral character, and that in the Harpalus affair he was the victim of the Macedonian faction and of the misled patriotic party, co-operating for the time being.
When the tidings of the death of Alexander startled the world, Demosthenes at once, though in exile, became intensely active in arousing the patriots to strike one more blow for liberty. He was recalled to Athens, restored to his high place, and became again the chief influence in preparing for the last desperate resistance to the Macedonians. When the cause of Greek freedom was finally lost, Demosthenes went into exile; a price was set upon his head; and when the Macedonian soldiers, led by a Greek traitor, were about to lay hands upon him in the temple of Poseidon at Calauria, he sucked the poison which he always carried ready in his pen, and died rather than yield himself to the hated enemies of his country.
It remains only to say that the general consensus of ancient and modern opinion is, that Demosthenes was the supreme figure in the brilliant line of orators of antiquity. The chief general characteristics in all Demosthenes's public oratory are a sustained intensity and a merciless directness. Swift as waves before a gale, every word bears straight toward the final goal of his purpose. We are hardly conscious even of the artistic taste which fits each phrase, and sentence, and episode, to the larger occasion as well as to each other. Indeed, we lose the rhetorician altogether in the devoted pleader, the patriot, the self-forgetful chief of a noble but losing cause. His careful study of the great orators who had preceded him undoubtedly taught him much; yet it was his own original and creative power, lodged in a far-sighted, generous, and fearless nature, that enabled him to leave to mankind a series of forensic masterpieces hardly rivaled in any age or country.
THE THIRD PHILIPPIC
THE ARGUMENT
This speech was delivered about three months after the second Philippic, while Philip was advancing into Thrace, and threatening both the Chersonese and the Propontine coast. No new event had happened which called for any special consultation; but Demosthenes, alarmed by the formidable character of Philip's enterprises and vast military preparations, felt the necessity of rousing the Athenians to exertion.
Many speeches, men of Athens, are made in almost every Assembly about the hostilities of Philip, hostilities which ever since the treaty of peace he has been committing as well against you as against the rest of the Greeks; and all, I am sure, are ready to avow, though they forbear to do so, that our counsels and our measures should be directed to his humiliation and chastisement: nevertheless, so low have our affairs been brought by inattention and negligence, I fear it is harsh truth to say, that if all the orators had sought to suggest and you to pass resolutions for the utter ruining of the commonwealth, we could not methinks be worse off than we are. A variety of circumstances may have brought us to this state; our affairs have not declined from one or two causes only: but if you rightly examine, you will find it chiefly owing to the orators, who study to please you rather than advise for the best. Some of whom, Athenians, seeking to maintain the basis of their own power and repute, have no forethought for the future, and therefore think you also ought to have none; others, accusing and calumniating practical statesmen, labor only to make Athens punish Athens, and in such occupation to engage her that Philip may have liberty to say and do what he pleases. Politics of this kind are common here, but are the causes of your failures and embarrassment. I beg, Athenians, that you will not resent my plain speaking of the truth. Only consider. You hold liberty of speech in other matters to be the general right of all residents in Athens, insomuch that you allow a measure of it even to foreigners and slaves, and many servants may be seen among you speaking their thoughts more freely than citizens in some other States; and yet you have altogether banished it from your councils. The result has been, that in the Assembly you give yourselves airs and are flattered at hearing nothing but compliments; in your measures and proceedings you are brought to the utmost peril. If such be your disposition now, I must be silent: if you will listen to good advice without flattery, I am ready to speak. For though our affairs are in a deplorable condition, though many sacrifices have been made, still if you will choose to perform your duty it is possible to repair it all. A paradox, and yet a truth, am I about to state. That which is the most lamentable in the past is best for the future. How is this? Because you performed no part of your duty, great or small, and therefore you fared ill: had you done all that became you, and your situation were the same, there would be no hope of amendment. Philip has indeed prevailed over your sloth and negligence, but not over the country; you have not been worsted; you have not even bestirred yourselves.
If now we were all agreed that Philip is at war with Athens and infringing the peace, nothing would a speaker need to urge or advise but the safest and easiest way of resisting him. But since, at the very time when Philip is capturing cities and retaining divers of our dominions and assailing all people, there are men so unreasonable as to listen to repeated declarations in the Assembly that some of us are kindling war, one must be cautious and set this matter right: for whoever moves or advises a measure of defense is in danger of being accused afterwards as author of the war.
I will first then examine and determine this point, whether it be in our power to deliberate on peace or war. If the country may be at peace, if it depends on us (to begin with this), I say we ought to maintain peace; and I call upon the affirmant to move a resolution, to take some measure, and not to palter with us. But if another, having arms in his hand and a large force around him, amuses you with the name of peace while he carries on the operations of war, what is left but to defend yourselves? You may profess to be at peace if you like, as he does; I quarrel not with that. But if any man supposes this to be a peace, which will enable Philip to master all else and attack you last, he is a madman, or he talks of a peace observed towards him by you, not towards you by him. This it is that Philip purchases by all his expenditure—the privilege of assailing you without being assailed in turn.
If we really wait until he avows that he is at war with us, we are the simplest of mortals: for he would not declare that, though he marched even against Attica and Piræus; at least if we may judge from his conduct to others. For example, to the Olynthians he declared when he was forty furlongs from their city, that there was no alternative, but either they must quit Olynthus or he Macedonia; though before that time, whenever he was accused of such an intent, he took it ill and sent ambassadors to justify himself. Again, he marched toward the Phocians as if they were allies, and there were Phocian envoys who accompanied his march, and many among you contended that his advance would not benefit the Thebans. And he came into Thessaly of late as a friend and ally, yet he has taken possession of Pheræ; and lastly he told these wretched people of Oreus that he had sent his soldiers out of good-will to visit them, as he heard they were in trouble and dissension, and it was the part of allies and true friends to lend assistance on such occasions. People who would never have harmed him, though they might have adopted measures of defense, he chose to deceive rather than warn them of his attack; and think ye he would declare war against you before he began it, and that while you are willing to be deceived? Impossible. He would be the silliest of mankind, if whilst you the injured parties make no complaint against him, but are accusing your own countrymen, he should terminate your intestine strife and jealousies, warn you to turn against him, and remove the pretexts of his hirelings for asserting, to amuse you, that he makes no war upon Athens. O heavens! would any rational being judge by words rather than by actions, who is at peace with him and who at war? Surely none. Well then, tell me now: when he sends mercenaries into Chersonesus, which the king and all the Greeks have acknowledged to be yours, when he avows himself an auxiliary and writes us word so, what are such proceedings? He says he is not at war; I cannot however admit such conduct to be an observance of the peace; far otherwise: I say, by his attempt on Megara, by his setting up despotism in Eubœa, by his present advance into Thrace, by his intrigues in Peloponnesus, by the whole course of operations with his army, he has been breaking the peace and making war upon you; unless indeed you will say that those who establish batteries are not at war until they apply them to the walls. But that you will not say: for whoever contrives and prepares the means for my conquest, is at war with me before he darts or draws the bow. What, if anything should happen, is the risk you run? The alienation of the Hellespont, the subjection of Megara and Eubœa to your enemy, the siding of the Peloponnesians with him. Then can I allow that one who sets such an engine at work against Athens is at peace with her? Quite the contrary. From the day that he destroyed the Phocians I date his commencement of hostilities. Defend yourselves instantly, and I say you will be wise: delay it, and you may wish in vain to do so hereafter. So much do I dissent from your other counselors, men of Athens, that I deem any discussion about Chersonesus or Byzantium out of place. Succor them,—I advise that,—watch that no harm befalls them, send all necessary supplies to your troops in that quarter; but let your deliberations be for the safety of all Greece, as being in the utmost peril. I must tell you why I am so alarmed at the state of our affairs, that if my reasonings are correct, you may share them, and make some provision at least for yourselves, however disinclined to do so for others; but if in your judgment I talk nonsense and absurdity, you may treat me as crazed, and not listen to me either now or in future.
That Philip from a mean and humble origin has grown mighty, that the Greeks are jealous and quarreling among themselves, that it was far more wonderful for him to rise from that insignificance than it would now be, after so many acquisitions, to conquer what is left: these, and similar matters which I might dwell upon, I pass over. But I observe that all people, beginning with you, have conceded to him a right which in former times has been the subject of contest in every Grecian war. And what is this? The right of doing what he pleases, openly fleecing and pillaging the Greeks, one after another, attacking and enslaving their cities. You were at the head of the Greeks for seventy-three years, the Lacedæmonians for twenty-nine; and the Thebans had some power in these latter times after the battle of Leuctra. Yet neither you my countrymen, nor Thebans, nor Lacedæmonians, were ever licensed by the Greeks to act as you pleased; far otherwise. When you, or rather the Athenians of that time, appeared to be dealing harshly with certain people, all the rest, even such as had no complaint against Athens, thought proper to side with the injured parties in a war against her. So, when the Lacedæmonians became masters and succeeded to your empire, on their attempting to encroach and make oppressive innovations a general war was declared against them, even by such as had no cause of complaint. But wherefore mention other people? We ourselves and the Lacedæmonians, although at the outset we could not allege any mutual injuries, thought proper to make war for the injustice that we saw done to our neighbors. Yet all the faults committed by the Spartans in those thirty years, and by our ancestors in the seventy, are less, men of Athens, than the wrongs which in thirteen incomplete years that Philip has been uppermost he has inflicted on the Greeks: nay, they are scarcely a fraction of these, as may easily be shown in a few words. Olynthus and Methone and Apollonia, and thirty-two cities on the borders of Thrace, I pass over; all which he has so cruelly destroyed, that a visitor could hardly tell if they were ever inhabited; and of the Phocians, so considerable a people exterminated, I say nothing. But what is the condition of Thessaly? Has he not taken away her constitutions and her cities, and established tetrarchies, to parcel her out, not only by cities, but also by provinces, for subjection? Are not the Eubœan States governed now by despots, and that in an island near to Thebes and Athens? Does he not expressly write in his epistles, "I am at peace with those who are willing to obey me?" Nor does he write so and not act accordingly. He is gone to the Hellespont; he marched formerly against Ambracia; Elis, such an important city in Peloponnesus, he possesses; he plotted lately to get Megara: neither Hellenic nor barbaric land contains the man's ambition.
And we the Greek community, seeing and hearing this, instead of sending embassies to one another about it and expressing indignation, are in such a miserable state, so intrenched in our separate towns, that to this day we can attempt nothing that interest or necessity requires; we cannot combine, or form any association for succor and alliance; we look unconcernedly on the man's growing power, each resolving, methinks, to enjoy the interval that another is destroyed in, not caring or striving for the salvation of Greece: for none can be ignorant that Philip, like some course or attack of fever or other disease, is coming even on those that yet seem very far removed. And you must be sensible that whatever wrong the Greeks sustained from Lacedæmonians or from us was at least inflicted by genuine people of Greece; and it might be felt in the same manner as if a lawful son, born to a large fortune, committed some fault or error in the management of it; on that ground one would consider him open to censure and reproach, yet it could not be said that he was an alien, and not heir to the property which he so dealt with. But if a slave or a spurious child wasted and spoiled what he had no interest in—Heavens! how much more heinous and hateful would all have pronounced it! And yet in regard to Philip and his conduct they feel not this, although he is not only no Greek and no way akin to Greeks, but not even a barbarian of a place honorable to mention; in fact, a vile fellow of Macedon, from which a respectable slave could not be purchased formerly.
What is wanting to make his insolence complete? Besides his destruction of Grecian cities, does he not hold the Pythian games, the common festival of Greece, and if he comes not himself, send his vassals to preside? Is he not master of Thermopylæ and the passes into Greece, and holds he not those places by garrisons and mercenaries? Has he not thrust aside Thessalians, ourselves, Dorians, the whole Amphictyonic body, and got pre-audience of the oracle, to which even the Greeks do not all pretend? Yet the Greeks endure to see all this; methinks they view it as they would a hailstorm, each praying that it may not fall on himself, none trying to prevent it. And not only are the outrages which he does to Greece submitted to, but even the private wrongs of every people: nothing can go beyond this! Still under these indignities we are all slack and disheartened, and look towards our neighbors, distrusting one another instead of the common enemy. And how think ye a man who behaves so insolently to all, how will he act when he gets each separately under his control?
But what has caused the mischief? There must be some cause, some good reason why the Greeks were so eager for liberty then, and now are eager for servitude. There was something, men of Athens, something in the hearts of the multitude then which there is not now, which overcame the wealth of Persia and maintained the freedom of Greece, and quailed not under any battle by land or sea; the loss whereof has ruined all, and thrown the affairs of Greece into confusion. What was this? Nothing subtle or clever: simply that whoever took money from the aspirants for power or the corrupters of Greece were universally detested; it was dreadful to be convicted of bribery; the severest punishment was inflicted on the guilty, and there was no intercession or pardon. The favorable moments for enterprise which fortune frequently offers to the careless against the vigilant, to them that will do nothing against those that discharge all their duty, could not be bought from orators or generals; no more could mutual concord, nor distrust of tyrants and barbarians, nor anything of the kind. But now all such principles have been sold as in open market, and those imported in exchange, by which Greece is ruined and diseased. What are they? Envy where a man gets a bribe; laughter if he confesses it; mercy to the convicted; hatred of those that denounce the crime; all the usual attendants upon corruption. For as to ships and men and revenues and abundance of other materials, all that may be reckoned as constituting national strength—assuredly the Greeks of our day are more fully and perfectly supplied with such advantages than Greeks of the olden time. But they are all rendered useless, unavailable, unprofitable, by the agency of these traffickers.
That such is the present state of things, you must see without requiring my testimony; that it was different in former times I will demonstrate, not by speaking my own words, but by showing an inscription of your ancestors, which they graved on a brazen column and deposited in the citadel, not for their own benefit (they were right-minded enough without such records), but for a memorial and example to instruct you how seriously such conduct should be taken up. What says the inscription then? It says:—"Let Arthmius, son of Pythonax the Zelite, be declared an outlaw and an enemy of the Athenian people and their allies, him and his family." Then the cause is written why this was done: because he brought the Median gold into Peloponnesus. That is the inscription. By the gods! only consider and reflect among yourselves what must have been the spirit, what the dignity of those Athenians who acted so. One Arthmius a Zelite, subject of the king (for Zelea is in Asia), because in his master's service he brought gold into Peloponnesus,—not to Athens,—they proclaimed an enemy of the Athenians and their allies, him and his family, and outlawed. That is not by the outlawry commonly spoken of: for what would a Zelite care, to be excluded from Athenian franchises? It means not that; but in the statutes of homicide it is written, in cases where a prosecution for murder is not allowed, but killing is sanctioned, "and let him die an outlaw," says the legislator; by which he means that whoever kills such a person shall be unpolluted. Therefore they considered that the preservation of all Greece was their own concern (but for such opinion, they would not have cared whether people in Peloponnesus were bought and corrupted); and whomsoever they discovered taking bribes, they chastised and punished so severely as to record their names in brass. The natural result was, that Greece was formidable to the barbarian, not the barbarian to Greece. 'Tis not so now: since neither in this nor in other respects are your sentiments the same. But what are they? You know yourselves; why am I to upbraid you with everything? The Greeks in general are alike, and no better than you. Therefore I say, our present affairs demand earnest attention and wholesome counsel.
There is a foolish saying of persons who wish to make us easy, that Philip is not yet as powerful as the Lacedæmonians were formerly, who ruled everywhere by land and sea, and had the king for their ally, and nothing withstood them; yet Athens resisted even that nation, and was not destroyed. I myself believe that while everything has received great improvement, and the present bears no resemblance to the past, nothing has been so changed and improved as the practice of war. For anciently, as I am informed, the Lacedæmonians and all Grecian people would for four or five months during the season, only, invade and ravage the land of their enemies with heavy-armed and national troops, and return home again; and their ideas were so old-fashioned, or rather national, that they never purchased an advantage from any; theirs was a legitimate and open warfare. But now you doubtless perceive that the majority of disasters have been effected by treason; nothing is done in fair field or combat. You hear of Philip marching where he pleases, not because he commands troops of the line, but because he has attached to him a host of skirmishers, cavalry, archers, mercenaries, and the like. When with these he falls upon a people in civil dissension, and none (through mistrust) will march out to defend the country, he applies engines and besieges them. I need not mention that he makes no difference between winter and summer, that he has no stated season of repose. You, knowing these things, reflecting on them, must not let the war approach your territories, nor get your necks broken, relying on the simplicity of the old war with the Lacedæmonians; but take the longest time beforehand for defensive measures and preparations, see that he stirs not from home, avoid any decisive engagement. For a war, if we choose, men of Athens, to pursue a right course, we have many natural advantages; such as the position of his kingdom, which we may extensively plunder and ravage, and a thousand more; but for a battle he is better trained than we are.
Nor is it enough to adopt these resolutions and oppose him by warlike measures: you must on calculation and on principle abhor his advocates here, remembering that it is impossible to overcome your enemies abroad until you have chastised those who are his ministers within the city. Which, by Jupiter and all the gods, you cannot and will not do! You have arrived at such a pitch of folly or madness or—I know not what to call it: I am tempted often to think that some evil genius is driving you to ruin—that for the sake of scandal or envy or jest or any other cause, you command hirelings to speak (some of whom would not deny themselves to be hirelings), and laugh when they abuse people. And this, bad as it is, is not the worst; you have allowed these persons more liberty for their political conduct than your faithful counselors; and see what evils are caused by listening to such men with indulgence. I will mention facts that you will all remember.
In Olynthus some of the statesmen were in Philip's interest, doing everything for him; some were on the honest side, aiming to preserve their fellow-citizens from slavery. Which party, now, destroyed their country? or which betrayed the cavalry, by whose betrayal Olynthus fell? The creatures of Philip; they that, while the city stood, slandered and calumniated the honest counselors so effectually that the Olynthian people were induced to banish Apollonides.
Nor is it there only, and nowhere else, that such practice has been ruinous.
What can be the reason—perhaps you wonder—why the Olynthians were more indulgent to Philip's advocates than to their own? The same which operates with you. They who advise for the best cannot always gratify their audience, though they would; for the safety of the State must be attended to; their opponents by the very counsel which is agreeable advance Philip's interest. One party required contribution, the other said there was no necessity; one were for war and mistrust, the other for peace, until they were ensnared. And so on for everything else (not to dwell on particulars); the one made speeches to please for the moment, and gave no annoyance; the other offered salutary counsel that was offensive. Many rights did the people surrender at last, not from any such motive of indulgence or ignorance, but submitting in the belief that all was lost. Which, by Jupiter and Apollo, I fear will be your case, when on calculation you see that nothing can be done. I pray, men of Athens, it may never come to this! Better die a thousand deaths than render homage to Philip, or sacrifice any of your faithful counselors. A fine recompense have the people of Oreus got, for trusting themselves to Philip's friends and spurning Euphræus! Finely are the Eretrian commons rewarded, for having driven away your ambassadors and yielded to Clitarchus! Yes; they are slaves, exposed to the lash and the torture. Finely he spared the Olynthians! It is folly and cowardice to cherish such hopes, and while you take evil counsel and shirk every duty, and even listen to those who plead for your enemies, to think you inhabit a city of such magnitude that you cannot suffer any serious misfortune. Yea, and it is disgraceful to exclaim on any occurrence, when it is too late, "Who would have expected it? However—this or that should have been done, the other left undone." Many things could the Olynthians mention now, which if foreseen at the time would have prevented their destruction. Many could the Orites mention, many the Phocians, and each of the ruined States. But what would it avail them? As long as the vessel is safe, whether it be great or small, the mariner, the pilot, every man in turn should exert himself, and prevent its being overturned either by accident or design: but when the sea hath rolled over it, their efforts are vain. And we likewise, O Athenians, whilst we are safe, with a magnificent city, plentiful resources, lofty reputation—what must we do? Many of you, I dare say, have been longing to ask. Well then, I will tell you; I will move a resolution; pass it, if you please.
First, let us prepare for our own defense; provide ourselves, I mean, with ships, money, and troops—for surely, though all other people consented to be slaves, we at least ought to struggle for freedom. When we have completed our own preparations and made them apparent to the Greeks, then let us invite the rest, and send our ambassadors everywhere with the intelligence, to Peloponnesus, to Rhodes, to Chios, to the king, I say (for it concerns his interests not to let Philip make universal conquest); that, if you prevail, you may have partners of your dangers and expenses in case of necessity, or at all events that you may delay the operations. For since the war is against an individual, not against the collected power of a State, even this may be useful; as were the embassies last year to Peloponnesus, and the remonstrances with which I and the other envoys went round and arrested Philip's progress, so that he neither attacked Ambracia nor started for Peloponnesus. I say not, however, that you should invite the rest without adopting measures to protect yourselves; it would be folly, while you sacrifice your own interest, to profess a regard for that of strangers, or to alarm others about the future, whilst for the present you are unconcerned. I advise not this; I bid you send supplies to the troops in Chersonesus, and do what else they require; prepare yourselves and make every effort first, then summon, gather, instruct the rest of the Greeks. That is the duty of a State possessing a dignity such as yours. If you imagine that Chalcidians or Megarians will save Greece, while you run away from the contest, you imagine wrong. Well for any of those people if they are safe themselves! This work belongs to you; this privilege your ancestors bequeathed to you, the prize of many perilous exertions. But if every one will sit seeking his pleasure, and studying to be idle himself, never will he find others to do his work; and more than this, I fear we shall be under the necessity of doing all that we like not at one time. Were proxies to be had, our inactivity would have found them long ago; but they are not.
Such are the measures which I advise, which I propose; adopt them, and even yet, I believe, our prosperity may be re-established. If any man has better advice to offer, let him communicate it openly. Whatever you determine, I pray to all the gods for a happy result.
Translation of Charles R. Kennedy.
INVECTIVE AGAINST LICENSE OF SPEECH
This, you must be convinced, is a struggle for existence. You cannot overcome your enemies abroad till you have punished your enemies, his ministers, at home. They will be the stumbling-blocks which prevent you reaching the others. Why, do you suppose, Philip now insults you? To other people he at least renders services though he deceives them, while he is already threatening you. Look for instance at the Thessalians. It was by many benefits conferred on them that he seduced them into their present bondage. And then the Olynthians, again,—how he cheated them, first giving them Potidæa and several other places, is really beyond description. Now he is enticing the Thebans by giving up to them Bœotia, and delivering them from a toilsome and vexatious war. Each of these people did get a certain advantage; but some of them have suffered what all the world knows; others will suffer whatever may hereafter befall them. As for you, I recount not all that has been taken from you, but how shamefully have you been treated and despoiled! Why is it that Philip deals so differently with you and with others? Because yours is the only State in Greece in which the privilege is allowed of speaking for the enemy, and a citizen taking a bribe may safely address the Assembly, though you have been robbed of your dominions. It was not safe at Olynthus to be Philip's advocate, unless the Olynthian commonalty had shared the advantage by possession of Potidæa. It was not safe in Thessaly to be Philip's advocate, unless the people of Thessaly had secured the advantage by Philip's expelling their tyrants and restoring the Synod at Pylæ. It was not safe in Thebes, until he gave up Bœotia to them and destroyed the Phocians. Yet at Athens, though Philip has deprived you of Amphipolis and the territory round Cardia—nay, is making Eubœa a fortress as a check upon us, and is advancing to attack Byzantium—it is safe to speak in Philip's behalf.
JUSTIFICATION OF HIS PATRIOTIC POLICY
Do not go about repeating that Greece owes all her misfortunes to one man. No, not to one man, but to many abandoned men distributed throughout the different States, of whom, by earth and heaven, Æschines is one. If the truth were to be spoken without reserve, I should not hesitate to call him the common scourge of all the men, the districts, and the cities which have perished; for the sower of the seed is answerable for the crop....
I affirm that if the future had been apparent to us all,—if you, Æschines, had foretold it and proclaimed it at the top of your voice instead of preserving total silence,—nevertheless the State ought not to have deviated from her course, if she had regard to her own honor, the traditions of the past, or the judgment of posterity. As it is, she is looked upon as having failed in her policy,—the common lot of all mankind when such is the will of heaven; but if, claiming to be the foremost State of Greece, she had deserted her post, she would have incurred the reproach of betraying Greece to Philip. If we had abandoned without a struggle all which our forefathers braved every danger to win, who would not have spurned you, Æschines? How could we have looked in the face the strangers who flock to our city, if things had reached their present pass,—Philip the chosen leader and lord of all,—while others without our assistance had borne the struggle to avert this consummation? We! who have never in times past preferred inglorious safety to peril in the path of honor. Is there a Greek or a barbarian who does not know that Thebes at the height of her power, and Sparta before her—ay, and even the King of Persia himself—would have been only glad to compromise with us, and that we might have had what we chose, and possessed our own in peace, had we been willing to obey orders and to suffer another to put himself at the head of Greece? But it was not possible,—it was not a thing which the Athenians of those days could do. It was against their nature, their genius, and their traditions; and no human persuasion could induce them to side with a wrong-doer because he was powerful, and to embrace subjection because it was safe. No; to the last our country has fought and jeopardized herself for honor and glory and pre-eminence. A noble choice, in harmony with your national character, as you testify by your respect for the memories of your ancestors who have so acted. And you are in the right; for who can withhold admiration from the heroism of the men who shrank not from leaving their city and their fatherland, and embarking in their war-ships, rather than submit to foreign dictation? Why, Themistocles, who counseled this step, was elected general; and the man who counseled submission was stoned to death—and not he only, for his wife was stoned by your wives, as he was by you. The Athenians of those days went not in quest of an orator or a general who could help them to prosperous slavery; but they scorned life itself, if it were not the life of freedom. Each of them regarded himself as the child not only of his father and of his mother, but of his country; and what is the difference? He who looks on himself as merely the child of his parents, awaits death in the ordinary course of nature; while he who looks on himself as the child also of his country, will be ready to lay down his life rather than see her enslaved....
Do I take credit to myself for having inspired you with sentiments worthy of your ancestors? Such presumption would expose me to the just rebuke of every man who hears me. What I maintain is, that these very sentiments are your own; that the spirit of Athens was the same before my time,—though I do claim to have had a share in the application of these principles to each successive crisis. Æschines, therefore, when he impeaches our whole policy, and seeks to exasperate you against me as the author of all your alarms and perils, in his anxiety to deprive me of present credit is really laboring to rob you of your everlasting renown. If by your vote against Ctesiphon you condemn my policy, you will pronounce yourselves to have been in the wrong, instead of having suffered what has befallen you through the cruel injustice of fortune. But it cannot be; you have not been in the wrong, men of Athens, in doing battle for the freedom and salvation of all: I swear it by your forefathers, who bore the battle's brunt at Marathon; by those who stood in arms at Platæa; by those who fought the sea fight at Salamis; by the heroes of Artemisium, and many more whose resting-place in our national monuments attests that, that as our country buried, so she honored, all alike—victors and vanquished. She was right; for what brave men could do, all did, though a higher power was master of their fate.