[The Treaty of Alliance between the Athenians and Phocians is read.]
{62} These, then, were the things for which they relied upon you—friendship, alliance, and assistance. Now listen to what befell them, because Aeschines prevented your going to their assistance. (To the clerk.) Read.
[The Agreement between Philip and the Phocians is read.]
You hear it, men of Athens. 'An Agreement between Philip and the Phocians,' it runs—not between the Thebans and the Phocians, nor the Thessalians and the Phocians, nor the Locrians, nor any one else who was there. Again, 'the Phocians shall deliver up their cities to Philip'—not to the Thebans or Thessalians or any one else. {63} And why? Because the defendant's report to you was that Philip had crossed the Pass with a view to the preservation of the Phocians. Thus it was Aeschines in whom all their trust was placed; it was with him in their minds that they considered the whole situation; it was with him in their minds that they made the Peace. (To the clerk.) Now read the remainder. (To the jury.) And do you observe for what they trusted him, and what treatment they received. Does it show any resemblance or similarity to what Aeschines predicted in his report? (To the clerk.) Read on.
[The decrees of the Amphictyons are read.]
{64} Men of Athens, the horror and the immensity of this calamity have never been surpassed in our day in the Hellenic world, nor even, I believe, in the time before us. Yet these great and dreadful events a single man has been given power to bring about, by the action of these men, while the city of Athens was still in being—Athens, whose traditional policy is to stand as the champion of the Hellenic peoples, and not to suffer anything like this to take place. The nature of the ruin which the unhappy Phocians have suffered may be seen, not only from these decrees, but also from the actual results of the action taken, and an awful and piteous sight it is, men of Athens. {65} For when recently we were on our way to Delphi[n] we could not help seeing it all—houses razed to the ground, cities stripped of their walls, the land destitute of men in their prime—only a few poor women and little children left, and some old men in misery. Indeed, no words can describe the distress now prevailing there. Yet this was the people, I hear you all saying, that once gave its vote against the Thebans,[n] when the question of your enslavement was laid before them. {66} What then, men of Athens, do you think would be the vote, what the sentence, that your forefathers would give, if they could recover consciousness, upon those who were responsible for the destruction of this people? I believe that if they stoned them to death with their own hands, they would hold themselves guiltless of blood. Is it not utterly shameful—does it not, if possible, go beyond all shame—that those who saved us then, and gave the saving vote for us, should now have met with the very opposite fate through these men, suffering as no Hellenic people has ever suffered before, with none to hinder it? Who then is responsible for this crime? Who is the author of this deception? Who but Aeschines?
{67} Of all the many reasons for which Philip might be congratulated with good cause upon his fortune, the chief ground of congratulation is a piece of good fortune, to which, by every Heavenly Power, I cannot find any parallel in our days. To have captured great cities, to have reduced a vast expanse of territory to subjection, and all similar actions, are, of course, enviable and brilliant achievements—undeniably so. But many other persons might be mentioned who had achieved as much. {68} The good fortune of which I am about to speak is peculiar to Philip, and has never been given to any other. It is this—that when he needed scoundrels to do his work for him, he found even greater scoundrels than he wanted. For as such we have surely good reason to think of them. For when there were falsehoods which Philip himself, in spite of the immense interests which he had at stake, did not dare to utter on his own behalf—which he did not set down in any of his letters, and which none of his envoys uttered—these men sold their services for the purpose, and undertook your deception. {69} Antipater and Parmenio, servants of a master as they were, and unlikely ever to find themselves in your presence again, none the less secured for themselves that they should not be the instruments in your deception, while these men, who were Athenians, citizens of the most free city, and held an official position as your ambassadors—though they would have to meet you and look you in the face, and pass the remainder of their lives among you, and render before you an account of their actions—they, I say, undertook the task of deceiving you. How could vileness or desperation go further than this?
{70} But I would have you understand further that he is under your curse, and that you cannot, without violation of religion and piety, acquit him, when he has thus lied to you. (To the clerk.) Recite the Curse. Take it from me, and read it out of the law.
[The Curse is read.]
This imprecation is pronounced in your name, men of Athens, by the herald, at every meeting of the Assembly, as the law appoints; and when the Council sits, it is pronounced again there. Nor can Aeschines say that he did not know it well. He was your under-clerk and servant to the Council, and used himself to read this law over[n] to the herald. {71} Surely, then, you will have done a strange and monstrous thing, men of Athens, if to-day, when you have it in your power, you should fail to do for yourselves the thing which you enjoin upon the gods, or rather claim from them as your due; and should acquit a man whom you pray to the gods to destroy utterly—himself, his race and his house. You must not do this. You may leave it to the gods to punish one whom you cannot yourselves detect; but when you have yourselves caught the criminal, you must no longer lay the task of punishing him upon the gods.