The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1

by Demosthenes

What prayers, then, do you imagine Philip offered to the gods, when he poured his libation, or the Thebans? Did they not ask them to give success in war, and victory, to themselves and their allies, and the contrary to the allies of the Phocians? In these prayers, therefore—in these imprecations upon his own country—Aeschines joined. It is for you to return them upon his own head to-day.

{131} His departure, then, was a contravention of the law which imposes the penalty of death for the offence, and it has been shown that on his arrival he acted in a manner for which he deserves to die again and again, while his former proceedings and the work which he did as ambassador, in their interest,[n] would justly slay him. Ask yourselves what penalty can be found, which will adequately atone for all these crimes? {132} It would surely be shameful, men of Athens, that while all of you, and the whole people, denounce publicly all the consequences of the Peace; while you decline to take part in the business of the Amphictyons; while your attitude towards Philip is one of vexation and mistrust, because the deeds that have been done are impious and atrocious, instead of righteous and advantageous to you; that nevertheless, when you have come into court as the sworn representatives of the State, to sit in judgement upon the report of these proceedings, you should acquit the author of all the evil, when you have taken him red-handed in actions like these. {133} Who is there of all your fellow citizens—nay, who of all the Hellenes—that would not have good cause for complaint against you, when he saw that though you were enraged against Philip, who in making peace after war was merely purchasing the means to his end from those who offered them for sale—a very pardonable transaction—you were yet acquitting Aeschines, who sold your interests in this shameful manner, notwithstanding the extreme penalties which the laws appoint for such conduct?

{134} Now it is possible that an argument may also be used by the other side to some such effect as this—that the condemnation of those whose diplomacy brought about the Peace will mean the beginning of enmity with Philip. If this is true, then, I can imagine, upon consideration, no more serious charge that I could bring against the defendant, than this. If Philip, who spent his money on the Peace which he wished to obtain, has become so formidable, so powerful, that you have already ceased to regard your oaths and the justice of the case, and are seeking how you can gratify Philip, what penalty, that those who are responsible for this could suffer, would be adequate to the offence? {135} I believe, however, that I shall actually show you that it would more probably mean the beginning of a friendship, advantageous to you. For you must be well assured, men of Athens, that Philip does not despise your city; nor was it because he regarded you as less serviceable than the Thebans, that he preferred them to you. No! {136} He had been instructed by these men and had heard from them, what I once told you in the Assembly, without contradiction from any of them, that the People is the most unstable thing in the world, and the most incalculable, inconstant as a wave of the sea, stirred by any chance wind. One comes, another goes; but no one cares for the public interest, or remembers it. Philip needs (he is told) friends upon whom he can rely to execute and manage his business with you—such friends, for instance, as his informant.[n] If this were secured for him, he would easily effect all that he desired in Athens. {137} Now if he heard that those who had used such language to him had immediately upon their return been beaten to death, he would doubtless have behaved as the Persian king did. And how was this? He had been deceived by Timagoras,[n] and had given him, it is said, forty talents; but when he heard that Timagoras had been put to death here, and had not even power to secure his own life, much less to carry out the promises he had made to him, he recognized that he had not paid the price to the man who had the power to effect his object. For first, as you know, he sent a dispatch, acknowledging once more your title to Amphipolis, which he had previously described as in alliance and friendship with himself; and secondly, he thenceforward wholly abstained from giving money to any one. {138} This is exactly what Philip would have done, if he had seen that any of these men had paid the penalty, and what, if he sees it, he will still do. But when he hears that they address you, and enjoy a high reputation with you, and prosecute others, what is he to do? Is he to seek to spend much, when he can spend less? or to desire to court the favour of all, when he need but court two or three? That would be madness. For even those public benefits which Philip conferred upon the Thebans he conferred not from choice— far from it—but because he was induced to do so by their ambassadors; and I will tell you how. {139} Ambassadors came to him from Thebes just at the time when we were there upon our mission from you. Philip wished to give them money, and that (so they said) in very large amounts. The Theban ambassadors would not accept or receive it. After that, while drinking at a sacrificial banquet and displaying his generosity towards them, Philip offered, as he drank to them, presents of many kinds—captives and the like—and finally he offered them goblets of gold and silver. All these they steadily refused, declining to put themselves in his power in any way. {140} At last Philo, one of the ambassadors, made a speech, men of Athens, which was worthy to be made in the name, not of Thebes, but of yourselves. For he said that it gave them pleasure and delight to see the magnanimous and generous attitude of Philip towards them; but for their own personal part, they were already his good friends even without these presents; and they begged him to apply his generosity to the existing political situation of their country, and to do something worthy of himself and Thebes, promising that, if he did so, their whole city, as well as themselves, would become attached to him. {141} And now observe what the Thebans have gained by this, and what consequences have followed; and contemplate in a real instance the advantages of refusing to sell your country's interests. First of all, they obtained peace when they were already distressed and suffering from the war, in which they were the losing side. Next, they secured the utter ruin of their enemies, the Phocians, and the complete destruction of their walls and towns. And was this all? No, indeed! For besides all this they obtained Orchomenus, Coroneia, Corsia, the Tilphossaeum, and as much of the territory of the Phocians as they desired. {142} This then was what the Thebans gained by the Peace; and surely no more could they have asked even in their prayers. And the ambassadors of Thebes gained—what? Nothing but the credit of having brought this good fortune to their country; and a noble reward it was, men of Athens, a proud record on the score of merit and honour—that honour which Aeschines and his party sold for money. Let us now set against one another the consequences of the Peace to the city of Athens and to the Athenian ambassadors respectively; and then observe whether its effects have been similar in the case of the city and of these men personally. {143} The city has surrendered all her possessions and all her allies; she has sworn to Philip that even if another approaches them to preserve them for her, you will prevent him; that you will consider any one who wishes to give them up to you as your enemy and foe, and the man who has robbed you of them as your ally and friend. {144} That is the resolution which Aeschines supported, and which was moved by his accomplice Philocrates; and although on the first day I was successful, and had persuaded you to ratify the decree of the allies and to summon Philip's envoys,[n] the defendant forced an adjournment of the question till the next day, and persuaded you to adopt the resolution of Philocrates, in which these proposals, and many others even more atrocious, are made. {145} These were the consequences of the Peace to Athens. It would not be easy to devise anything more shameful. What were the consequences to the ambassadors who brought these things about? I say nothing of all that you have seen for yourselves—the houses, the timber, the wheat. But they also possess properties and extensive estates in the country of your ruined allies, bringing in incomes of a talent to Philocrates and thirty minae to the defendant. {146} Yet surely, men of Athens, it is an atrocious and a monstrous thing, that the calamities of your allies should have become sources of revenue to your ambassadors, and that the same Peace which to the city that sent them meant the ruin of her allies, the surrender of her possessions, and shame in the place of honour, should have created for the ambassadors who brought these things to pass against their country, revenue, affluence, property, and wealth, in the place of abject poverty. To prove, however, that what I am telling you is true (to the clerk) call me the witnesses from Olynthus.

[The witnesses are called.]

{147} Now I should not wonder if he even dared to make some such statement as this—that the Peace which we were making could not have been made an honourable one, or such as I demanded, because our generals had mismanaged the war. If he argues thus, then remember, in Heaven's name, to ask him whether[n] it was from some other city that he went as ambassador, or from this city itself? If it was from some other, to whose success in war and to whose excellent generals he can point, then it was natural for him to take Philip's money: but if it was from Athens itself, why do we find him taking presents as part of a transaction which involved the surrender of her possessions by the city which sent him? For in any honest transaction the city that sent the ambassadors ought to have shared the same fortune as the ambassadors whom she sent. {148} Consider also this further point, men of Athens. Do you think that the successes of the Phocians against the Thebans in the war, or the successes of Philip against you, were the more considerable? Those of the Phocians against the Thebans, I am quite certain. At least, they held Orchomenus and Coroneia and the Tilphossaeum;[n] they had intercepted the Theban garrison at Neones;[n] they had slain two hundred of them on Hedyleum;[n] a trophy had been raised, their cavalry were victorious, and a whole Iliad of misfortunes had beset the Thebans. You were in no such position as this, and may you never be so in the future! Your most serious disadvantage in your hostilities with Philip was your inability to inflict upon him all the damage that you desired; you were completely secure against suffering any harm yourselves. How is it then that, as the result of one and the same Peace, the Thebans, who were being so badly worsted in the war, have recovered their own possessions and, in addition, have gained those of their enemies; while you, the Athenians, have lost under the Peace even what you retained safely through the war? It is because their ambassadors did not sell their interests, while these men have sold yours. [Ah! he will say,[n] but the allies were exhausted by the war….]. That this is how these things were accomplished, you will realize still more clearly from what I have yet to say.

{150}For when this Peace was concluded—the Peace of Philocrates, which Aeschines supported—and when Philip's envoys had set sail, after receiving the oaths from us—and up to this time nothing that had been done was irreparable, for though the Peace was disgraceful and unworthy of Athens, still we were to get those marvellous good things in return—then I say, I asked and told the ambassadors to sail as quickly as possible to the Hellespont, and not to sacrifice any of our positions there, nor allow Philip to occupy them in the interval. {151} For I knew very well that everything that is sacrificed when peace is in process of being concluded after war, is lost to those who are so neglectful; since no one who had been induced to make peace with regard to the situation as a whole ever yet made up his mind to fight afresh for the sake of possessions which had been left unsecured; such possessions those who first take them keep. And, apart from this, I thought that, if we sailed, the city could not fail to secure one of two useful results. Either, when we were there and had received Philip's oath according to the decree, he would restore the possessions of Athens which he had taken, and keep his hands off the rest; {152} or, if he did not do so, we should immediately report the fact to you here, and so, when you saw his grasping and perfidious disposition in regard to those your remoter and less important interests, you would not in dealing with greater matters close at hand—in other words, with the Phocians and Thermopylae—let anything be lost. If he failed to forestall you in regard to these, and you were not deceived, your interests would be completely secured, and he would give you your rights without hesitation. {153} And I had good reason for such expectations. For if the Phocians were still safe and sound, as they then were, and were in occupation of Thermopylae, Philip would have had no terror to brandish before you, which could make you overlook any of your rights. For he was not likely either to make his way through by land, or to win a victory by sea, and so reach Attica; while if he refused to act as was right, you would instantly close his ports, reduce him to straits for money and other supplies, and place him in a state of siege; and in that case it would be he, and not you, to whom the advantages of peace would be the overmastering consideration. {154} And that I am not inventing this or claiming wisdom after the event—that I knew it at once, and, with your interest in view, foresaw what must happen and told my colleagues—you will realize from the following facts. When there was no longer any meeting of the Assembly available (since you had used up all the appointed days) and still the ambassadors did not depart, but wasted time here, I proposed a decree as a member of the Council, to which the people had given full powers, that the ambassadors should depart directly, and that the admiral Proxenus should convey them to any district in which he should ascertain Philip to be. My proposal was just what I now tell you, couched expressly in those terms. (To the clerk.) Take this decree and read it.

[The decree is read.]

{155} I brought them away, then, from Athens, sorely against their will, as you will clearly understand from their subsequent conduct. When we reached Oreus and joined Proxenus, instead of sailing and following their instructions, they made a circuitous journey by land, and before we reached Macedonia we had spent three and twenty days. All the rest of the time, until Philip's arrival, we were sitting idle at Pella; and this, with the journey, brought the time up to fifty days in all. {156} During this interval, in a time of peace and truce, Philip was taking Doriscus,[n] Thrace, the district towards the Walls, the Sacred Mountain—everything, in fact, and making his own arrangements there; while I spoke out repeatedly and insistently, first in the tone of a man giving his opinion to his colleagues, then as though I were informing the ignorant, till at last I addressed them without any concealment as men who had sold themselves and were the most impious of mankind. {157} And the man who contradicted me openly and opposed everything which I urged and which your decree enjoined, was Aeschines. Whether his conduct pleased all the other ambassadors as well, you will know presently; for as yet I allege nothing about any of them, and make no accusation: no one of them need appear an honest man to-day because I oblige him to do so, but only of his own free will, and because he was no partner in Aeschines' crimes. That the conduct in question was disgraceful, atrocious, venal, you have all seen. Who were the partners in it, the facts will show.

{158} 'But of course, during this interval they received the oaths from Philip's allies, or carried out their other duties.' Far from it! For though they had been absent from home three whole months, and received 1,000 drachmae from you for their expenses, they did not receive the oaths from a single city, either on their journey to Macedonia, or on the way back. It was in the inn before the temple of the Dioscuri—any one who has been to Pherae will understand me—when Philip was already on the march towards Athens at the head of an army, that the oaths were taken, in a fashion which was disgraceful, men of Athens, and insulting to you. {159} To Philip, however, it was worth anything that the transaction should have been carried out in this form. These men had failed in their attempt to insert among the terms of the Peace the clause which excluded the people of Halus and Pharsalus; Philocrates had been forced by you to expunge the words, and to write down expressly 'the Athenians and the allies of the Athenians'; and Philip did not wish any of his own allies to have taken such an oath; for then they would not join him in his campaign against those possessions of yours which he now holds, but would plead their oaths in excuse; {160} nor did he wish them to be witnesses of the promises on the strength of which he was obtaining the Peace. He did not wish it to be revealed to the world that the city of Athens had not, after all, been defeated in the war, and that it was Philip who was eager for peace, and was promising to do great things for Athens if he obtained it. It was just to prevent the revelation of these facts that he thought it inadvisable that the ambassadors should go to any of the cities; while for their part, they sought to gratify him in everything, with ostentatious and extravagant obsequiousness. {161} But when all this is proved against them—their waste of time, their sacrifice of your position in Thrace, their complete failure to act in accordance either with your decree or your interests, their lying report to you—how is it possible that before a jury of sane men, anxious to be true to their oath, Aeschines can be acquitted? To prove, however, that what I say is true (to the clerk), first read the decree, under which it was our duty to exact the oaths, then Philip's letter, and then the decree of Philocrates and that of the people.

[The decrees and letter are read.]