THE FIRST PHILIPPIC
[351 B.C.]
Demosthenes
It was at this epoch that Demosthenes pronounced, before the people of Athens, his first Philippic. So absorbed had been the Greeks by their private rivalries that they had paid no heed to the rapid and increasing progress made by the Macedonian monarchy. One man alone saw the danger; he had no other arms than his patriotism and his eloquence, but with these he fought valiantly, and though he could not preserve to his country liberty, he at least preserved its honour. The unequal conflict which was about to take place between Demosthenes and Philip was not alone a duel between the ablest of politicians and the greatest of orators; it was a duel to the death between two principles, monarchism and republicanism. These two principles had once before, in the reign of Xerxes, been arrayed against each other; but at that time the Greeks were able to forget their private differences in the common danger, and to superiority of numbers they had opposed, not alone heroism, which does not always suffice to conquer, but military tactics. Now conditions were different; Philip had borrowed of the Greeks their tactics, which he brought to perfection, and he managed to turn to his own advantage the condition of the land, now more than ever divided. It was never again to have that unity of military command so necessary in the face of the enemy. The hegemony of Sparta which Athens nobly accepted in the Median War was forever destroyed, and Sparta, which struggled vainly under its double burden, Megalopolis and Messene, took no notice of the progress of Philip. Thebes, which had broken Sparta’s power, was not strong enough to take its place, and foolishly inviting the approach of the enemy, repented too late and died in expiation of its fault. Athens remained, but how fallen from its former condition of active energy. In vain Demosthenes tried to awaken it; it asked but to sleep the long sleep of worn-out races. “When, Athenians,” cried the great demagogue, “will you rouse and do your duty? What new event, what pressing need, do you await? What contingency more urgent for free men than the danger of dishonour? Will you always assemble in the public squares to ask each other, ‘Well, what is new?’ What can be newer than a man from Macedonia making himself victor of Athens and master over all Greece? Is Philip dead? No, he is only ailing. But what matter to you if he be sick or dead; if heaven were to deliver you from him to-day, to-morrow you would cause another Philip to arise, for his victorious advance is far less a result of his own power than of your inertia.”
The war of the allies had exhausted Athens’ principal source of revenue, and, as frequently happens in the case of spendthrifts who are obliged to economise, the city preferred to do without necessities rather than deny itself the superfluous; the sovereign people refused absolutely to curtail its civil list. Pericles in instituting the public funds could not foresee that the day was to come when the Athenians would prefer amusement to the preservation of the nation’s safety. “Why be surprised at Philip’s success,” asks Demosthenes, “when all the sums formerly allotted to defray the cost of war are now squandered in useless festivity, a decree, furthermore, menacing with pain of death any one who undertakes to restore them to their former purpose?” He reverts frequently to this incurable propensity of Athenian dilettantism, citing the extreme punctuality with which public feast days were observed as against the tardiness of the administration in all that concerned marine matters, or war. “Tell me why your pompous feasts of Panathenæa or of Dionysia, which cost more than the armament of a fleet, are always celebrated on the day set, while your fleets, as at Methone, Pagasæ, and Potidæa, arrive too late? In the observance of your feasts all has been regulated by law; each of you knows in advance the choregus, the gymnasiarch of his tribe; he knows just what he is to receive and the exact moment when he is to receive it; nothing is uncertain, unexpected, neglected. In time of war, with all the preparations war demands, there is no order, no foresight, nothing but confusion on all sides. At the first alarm trierarchs are named, exchanges are made, subsidies are demanded. Then, to the ships are summoned first the metœci, then the freedmen, then the citizens, then—but pending all this work of preparation, that which our fleet should save has perished. All this, citizens, is doubtless very disagreeable to hear, but if in leaving out of a discourse all that offends we exclude the matter itself, what need to speak save for the mere pleasure of your ears?” And this was virtually true; the people listened to Demosthenes because he spoke well, then went to hear the orators of the opposite side, and in the enjoyment of this fine oratorical display were as royally amused as though they had visited the theatre or the Odeum.