{20} 'Can you not imagine,' I said, 'men of Messenia, the impatience with which the Olynthians used to listen to any speeches directed against Philip in those times, when he was giving up Anthemus to them—a city claimed as their own by all former Macedonian kings; when he was expelling the Athenian colonists from Poteidaea and presenting it to the Olynthians; when he had taken upon his own shoulders their quarrel with Athens, and given them the enjoyment of that territory? Did they expect, do you think, to suffer as they have done? if any one had foretold it, would they have believed him? {21} And yet,' I continued, 'after enjoying territory not their own for a very short time, they are robbed of their own by him for a great while to come; they are foully driven forth—not conquered merely, but betrayed by one another and sold; for it is not safe for a free state to be on these over-friendly terms with a tyrant. {22} What, again, of the Thessalians? Do you imagine,' I asked, 'that when he was expelling their tyrants, or again, when he was giving them Nicaea and Magnesia, they expected to see the present Council of Ten[n] established in their midst? Did they expect that the restorer of their Amphictyonic rights would take their own revenues from them for himself? Impossible! And yet these things came to pass, as all men may know. {23} You yourselves,' I continued, 'at present behold only the gifts and the promises of Philip. Pray, if you are really in your right minds, that you may never see the accomplishment of his deceit and treachery. There are, as you know well,' I said, 'all kinds of inventions designed for the protection and security of cities—palisades, walls, trenches, and every kind of defence. {24} All these are made with hands, and involve expense as well. But there is one safeguard which all sensible men possess by nature—a safeguard which is a valuable protection to all, but above all to a democracy against a tyrant. And what is this? It is distrust. Guard this possession and cleave to it; preserve this, and you need never fear disaster. {25} What is it that you desire?' I said. 'Is it freedom? And do you not see that the very titles that Philip bears are utterly alien to freedom? For a king, a tyrant, is always the foe of freedom and the enemy of law. Will you not be on your guard,' I said, 'lest in striving to be rid of war, you find yourselves slaves?'[n]
{26} My audience heard these words and received them with a tumult of approbation, as well as many other speeches from the envoys, both when I was present and again later. And yet, it seems, there is still no better prospect of their keeping Philip's friendship and promises at a distance. {27} In fact, the extraordinary thing is not that Messenians and certain Peloponnesians should act against their own better judgement, but that you who understand for yourselves, and who hear us, your orators, telling you, that there is a design against you, and that the toils are closing round you—that you, I say, by always refusing to act at once, should be about to find (as I think you will) that you have exposed yourselves unawares to the utmost peril: so much more does the pleasure and ease of the moment weigh with you, than any advantage to be reaped at some future date.
{28} In regard to the practical measures which you must take, you will, if you are wise, deliberate by yourselves[n] later. But I will at once propose an answer which you may make to-day, and which it will be consistent with your duty to have adopted.
[The answer is read.]
Now the right course, men of Athens, was to have summoned before you those who conveyed the promises[n] on the strength of which you were induced to make the Peace. {29} For I could never have brought myself to serve on the Embassy, nor, I am sure, would you have discontinued the war, had you imagined that Philip, when he had obtained peace, would act as he has acted. What we were then told was something very different from this. And there are others, too, whom you should summon. You ask whom I mean? After the Peace had been made, and I had returned from the Second Embassy, which was sent to administer the oaths, I saw how the city was being hoodwinked, and I spoke out repeatedly, protesting and forbidding you to sacrifice Thermopylae and the Phocians: {30} and the men to whom I refer were those who then said that a water-drinker[n] like myself was naturally a fractious and ill-tempered fellow; while Philip, if only he crossed the Pass, would fulfil your fondest prayers; for he would fortify Thespiae and Plataeae; he would put an end to the insolence of the Thebans; he would cut a canal through the Chersonese at his own charges, and would repay you for Amphipolis by the restoration of Euboea and Oropus. All this was said from this very platform, and I am quite sure that you remember it well, though your memory of those who injure you is but short. {31} To crown your disgrace, with nothing but these hopes in view, you resolved that this same Peace should hold good for your posterity also; so completely had you fallen under their influence. But why do I speak of all this now? why do I bid you summon these men? By Heaven, I will tell the truth without reserve, and will hold nothing back. {32} My object is not to give way to abuse, and so secure myself as good a hearing[n] as others in this place, while giving those who have come into collision with me from the first an opportunity for a further claim[n] upon Philip's money. Nor do I wish to waste time in empty words. {33} No; but I think that the plan which Philip is pursuing will some day trouble you more than the present situation does; for his design is moving towards fulfilment, and though I shrink from precise conjecture, I fear its accomplishment may even now be only too close at hand. And when the time comes when you can no longer refuse to attend to what is passing; when you no longer hear from me or from some other that it is all directed against you, but all alike see it for yourselves and know it for a certainty; then, I think, you will be angry and harsh enough. {34} And I am afraid that because your envoys have withheld from you the guilty secret of the purposes which they have been bribed to forward, those who are trying to remedy in some degree the ruin of which these men have been the instruments will fall victims to your wrath. For I observe that it is the general practice of some persons to vent their anger, not upon the guilty, but upon those who are most within their grasp. {35} While then the trouble is still to come, still in process of growth, while we can still listen to one another's words, I would remind each of you once more of what he well knows—who it was that induced you to sacrifice the Phocians and Thermopylae, the control of which gave Philip command of the road to Attica and the Peloponnesus; who it was, I say, that converted your debate about your rights and your interests abroad into a debate about the safety of your own country, and about war on your own borders—a war which will bring distress to each of us personally, when it is at our doors, but which sprang into existence on that day. {36} Had you not been misled by them, no trouble would have befallen this country. For we cannot imagine that Philip would have won victories by sea which would have enabled him to approach Attica with his fleet, or would have marched by land past Thermopylae and the Phocians; but he would either have been acting straightforwardly—keeping the Peace and remaining quiet; or else he would have found himself instantly plunged into a war no less severe than that which originally made him desirous of the Peace. {37} What I have said is sufficient by way of a reminder to you. Heaven grant that the time may not come when the truth of my words will be tested with all severity: for I at least have no desire to see any one meet with punishment, however much he may deserve his doom, if it is accompanied by danger and calamity to us all.
ON THE EMBASSY (OR. XIX)
[Introduction. The principal events with which a reader of this Speech ought to be acquainted have already been narrated (see especially the Introductions to the last two Speeches). The influence of the anti-Macedonian party grew gradually from the time of the Peace onwards. In 346, within a month after the return of the Second Embassy, the ambassadors presented their reports before the Logistae or Board of Auditors (after a futile attempt on the part of Aeschines to avoid making a report altogether); and Timarchus, supported by Demosthenes, there announced his intention of taking proceedings against Aeschines for misconduct on the Second Embassy. But Timarchus' own past history was not above reproach: he was attacked by Aeschines for the immoralities of his youth, which, it was stated, disqualified him from acting as prosecutor, and though defended by Demosthenes, was condemned and disfranchised (345 B.C.). But early in 343 Hypereides impeached Philocrates for corruption as ambassador, and obtained his condemnation to death—a penalty which he escaped by voluntary exile before the conclusion of the trial; and, later in the same year, Demosthenes brought the same charge against Aeschines.
In the meantime (since the delivery of Demosthenes' Second Philippic) Philip had been making fresh progress. The Arcadians and Argives (for the Athenian envoys to the Peloponnese in 344 seem to have had little success) were ready to open their gates to him. His supporters in Elis massacred their opponents, and with them the remnant of the Phocians who had crossed over to Elis with Phalaecus. At Megara, Perillus and Ptoeodorus almost succeeded in bringing a force of Philip's mercenaries into the town, but the attempt was defeated, by the aid of an Athenian force under Phocion. In Euboea Philip's troops occupied Porthmus, where the democratic party of Eretria had taken refuge, owing to an overthrow of the constitution (brought about by Philip's intrigues) which resulted in the establishment of Cleitarchus as tyrant. In the course of the same year (343) occurred two significant trials. The first was that of Antiphon, who had made an offer to Philip to burn the Athenian dockyards at the Peiraeus. He was summarily arrested by order of Demosthenes (probably in virtue of some administrative office): Aeschines obtained his release, but he was re-arrested by order of the Council of Areopagus[1] and condemned to death. The other trial was held before the Amphictyonic Council on the motion of the people of Delos, to decide whether the Athenians should continue to possess the right of managing the Temple of Delos. The Assembly chose Aeschines as counsel for Athens; but the Council of Areopagus, which had been given power to revise the appointment, put Hypereides in his place. Hypereides won the case. Early in 343 (or at all events before the middle of the year), Philip sent Python of Byzantium to complain of the language used about him by Athenian orators, and to offer to revise and amend the terms of the Peace of Philocrates. In response, an embassy was sent, headed by Hegesippus, a violent opponent of Macedonia, to propose to Philip (1) that instead of the clause 'that each party shall retain possession of what they have', a clause, 'that each party shall possess what is their own,' should be substituted; and (2) that all Greek States not included in the Treaty of Peace should be declared free, and that Athens and Philip should assist them, if they were attacked. These proposals, if sanctioned, would obviously have reopened the question of Amphipolis, Pydna, and Poteidaea, as well as of Cardia and the Thracian towns taken by Philip in 346. Hegesippus, moreover, was personally objectionable, and the embassy was dismissed with little courtesy by Philip, who even banished from Macedonia the Athenian poet Xenocleides for acting as host to the envoys. The feeling against Philip in Athens was evidently strong, when the prosecution of Aeschines by Demosthenes took place.
The trial was held before a jury (probably consisting of 1,501 persons), presided over by the Board of Auditors. Demosthenes spoke first, and Aeschines replied in a speech which is preserved. There is no doubt, on a comparison of the two speeches, that each, before it was published, received alterations and insertions, intended to meet the adversary's points, or to give a better colour to passages which had been unfavourably received. Probably not all the refutations 'in advance' were such in reality. But there is no sufficient reason to doubt that the speeches were delivered substantially as we have them. Aeschines was acquitted by thirty votes.
The question of the guilt or innocence of Aeschines will probably never be finally settled. A great part of his conduct can be explained as a sincere attempt to carry out the policy of Eubulus, or as the issue of a genuine belief that it was best for Athens to make terms with Philip and stand on his side. Even so the wisdom and the veracity of certain speeches which he had made is open to grave question; but this is a different thing from corruption. Moreover, to some of Demosthenes' arguments he has a conclusive reply. It is more difficult to explain his apparent change of opinion between the 18th and 19th of Elaphebolion, 346 (if Demosthenes' report of the debates is to be trusted); and some writers are disposed to date his corruption from the intervening night. Nor is it easy to meet Demosthenes' argument that if Aeschines had really been taken in by Philip, and believed the promises which he announced, or if he had actually heard Philip make the promises, he would have regarded Philip afterwards as a personal enemy, and not as a friend. But even on these points Aeschines might reply (though he could not reply so to the Athenian people or jury) that though he did not trust the promises, he regarded the interest of Athens as so closely bound up with the alliance with Philip, that he considered it justifiable to deceive the people into making the alliance, or at least to take the risk of the promises which he announced proving untrue. In any case there is no convincing evidence of corruption; and it may be taken as practically certain that he was not bribed to perform particular services. It is less certain that he was not influenced by generous presents from Philip in forming his judgement of Philip's character and intentions. The standard of Athenian public opinion in regard to the receipt of presents was not that of the English Civil Service; and the ancient orators accuse one another of corruption almost as a matter of course. (We have seen that Demosthenes began the attack upon Eubulus' party in this form as early as the Speech for the Rhodians; it appears in almost every subsequent oration: and in their turn, his opponents make the same charge against him.) It is, in any case, remarkable that at a time when the people was plainly exasperated with the Peace and its authors, and very ill-disposed towards Philip, a popular jury nevertheless acquitted Aeschines; and the verdict is not sufficiently explained either by the fact that Eubulus supported Aeschines or by the jurors' memory of Demosthenes' own part in the earlier peace-negotiations, though this must have weakened the force of his attack. That Demosthenes himself believed Aeschines to have been bribed, and could himself see no other explanation of his conduct, need not be doubted; and although the speech contains some of those misrepresentations of fact and passages of irrelevant personal abuse which deface some of his best work, it also contains some of his finest pieces of oratory and narrative.