{53} I now wish, without more delay, to make my defence upon the indictment itself, and to go through my past acts, in order that Aeschines may hear (though he knows them well) the grounds on which I claim to have a right both to the gifts which the Council have proposed, and even to far greater than these. (To the clerk.) Now take the indictment and read it.
{54, 55} [The indictment is read.]
{56} These, men of Athens, are the points in the resolution which the prosecutor assails; and these very points will, I think, afford me my first means of proving to you that the defence which I am about to offer is an absolutely fair one. For I will take the points of the indictment in the very same order as the prosecutor: I will speak of each in succession, and will knowingly pass over nothing. {57} Any decision upon the statement that I 'consistently do and say what is best for the People, and am eager to do whatever good I can', and upon the proposal to vote me thanks for this, depends, I consider, upon my past political career: for it is by an investigation of my career that either the truth and the propriety, or else the falsehood, of these statements which Ctesiphon has made about me will be discovered. {58} Again, the proposal to crown me, without the addition of the clause 'when he has submitted to his examination', and the order to proclaim the award of the crown in the theatre, must, I imagine, stand or fall with my political career; for the question is whether I deserve the crown and the proclamation before my fellow countrymen or not. At the same time I consider myself further bound to point out to you the laws under which the defendant's proposal could be made. In this honest and straightforward manner, men of Athens, I have determined to make my defence; and now I will proceed to speak of my past actions themselves. {59} And let no one imagine that I am detaching my argument from its connexion with the indictment, if I break into a discussion of international transactions. For it is the prosecutor who, by assailing the clause of the decree which states that I do and say what is best, and by indicting it as false, has rendered the discussion of my whole political career essentially germane to the indictment; and further, out of the many careers which public life offers, it was the department of international affairs that I chose; so that I have a right to derive my proofs also from that department.
{60} I will pass over all that Philip snatched from us and secured, in the days before I took part in public life as an orator. None of these losses, I imagine, has anything to do with me. But I will recall to you, and will render you an account of all that, from the day when I entered upon this career, he was prevented from taking, when I have made one remark. {61} Philip, men of Athens, had a great advantage in his favour. For in the midst of the Hellenic peoples—and not of some only, but of all alike—there had sprung up a crop of traitors—corrupt, god-forsaken men—more numerous than they have ever been within the memory of man. These he took to help and co-operate with him; and great as the mutual ill-will and dissensions of the Hellenes already were, he rendered them even worse, by deceiving some, making presents to others, and corrupting others in every way; and at a time when all had in reality but one interest—to prevent his becoming powerful—he divided them into a number of factions. {62} All the Hellenes then being in this condition, still ignorant of the growing and accumulating evil, you have to ask yourselves, men of Athens, what policy and action it was fitting for the city to choose, and to hold me responsible for this; for the person who assumed that responsibility in the State was myself. {63} Should she, Aeschines, have sacrificed her pride and her own dignity? Should she have joined the ranks of the Thessalians and Dolopes,[n] and helped Philip to acquire the empire of Hellas, cancelling thereby the noble and righteous deeds of our forefathers? Or, if she should not have done this (for it would have been in very truth an atrocious thing), should she have looked on, while all that she saw would happen, if no one prevented it—all that she realized, it seems, at a distance—was actually taking place? {64} Nay, I should be glad to ask to-day the severest critic of my actions, which party he would have desired the city to join—the party which shares the responsibility for the misery and disgrace which has fallen upon the Hellenes (the party of the Thessalians and their supporters, one may call it), or the party which looked on while these calamities were taking place, in the hope of gaining some advantage for themselves—in which we should place the Arcadians and Messenians and Argives. {65} But even of these, many—nay, all—have in the end fared worse than we. For if Philip had departed immediately after his victory, and gone his way; if afterwards he had remained at peace, and had given no trouble whatever to any of his own allies or of the other Hellenes; then there would have been some ground for blaming and accusing those who had opposed his plans. But if he has stripped them all alike of their dignity, their paramountcy, and their independence—nay, even of their free constitutions,[n] wherever he could do so—can it be denied that the policy which you adopted on my advice was the most glorious policy possible?
{66} But I return to my former point. What was it fitting for the city to do, Aeschines, when she saw Philip establishing for himself a despotic sway over the Hellenes? What language should have been used, what measures proposed, by the adviser of the people at Athens (for that it was at Athens makes the utmost difference), when I knew that from the very first, up to the day when I myself ascended the platform, my country had always contended for pre-eminence, honour, and glory, and in the cause of honour, and for the interests of all, had sacrificed more money and lives than any other Hellenic people had spent for their private ends: {67} when I saw that Philip himself, with whom our conflict lay, for the sake of empire and absolute power, had had his eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken, his hand and his leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body that Fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he might live in honour and glory? {68} And surely no one would dare to say that it was fitting that in one bred at Pella, a place then inglorious and insignificant, there should have grown up so lofty a spirit that he aspired after the empire of Hellas, and conceived such a project in his mind; but that in you, who are Athenians, and who day by day in all that you hear and see behold the memorials of the gallantry of your forefathers, such baseness should be found, that you would yield up your liberty to Philip by your own deliberate offer and deed. {69} No man would say this. One alternative remained, and that, one which you were bound to take—that of a righteous resistance to the whole course of action by which he was doing you injury. You acted thus from the first, quite rightly and properly; while I helped by my proposals and advice during the time of my political activity, and I do not deny it. But what ought I to have done? For the time has come to ask you this, Aeschines, and to dismiss everything else. {70} Amphipolis, Pydna, Poteidaea, Halonnesus—all are blotted from my memory. As for Serrhium, Doriscus, the sack of Peparethus, and all the other injuries inflicted upon the city, I renounce all knowledge of their ever having happened—though you actually said that I involved my countrymen in hostility by talking of these things, when the decrees which deal with them were the work of Eubulus and Aristophon[n] and Diopeithes,[n] and not mine at all—so glibly do you assert anything that suits your purpose! {71} But of this too I say nothing at present. I only ask you whether Philip, who was appropriating Euboea,[n] and establishing it as a stronghold to command Attica; who was making an attempt upon Megara, seizing Oreus, razing the walls of Porthmus, setting up Philistides as tyrant at Oreus and Cleitarchus at Eretria, bringing the Hellespont into his own power, besieging Byzantium, destroying some of the cities of Hellas, and restoring his exiled friends to others—whether he, I say, in acting thus, was guilty of wrong, violating the truce and breaking the Peace, or not? Was it fit that one of the Hellenes should arise to prevent it, or not? {72} If it was not fit—if it was fit that Hellas should become like the Mysian booty[n] in the proverb before men's eyes, while the Athenians had life and being, then I have lost my labour in speaking upon this theme, and the city has lost its labour in obeying me: then let everything that has been done be counted for a crime and a blunder, and those my own! But if it was right that one should arise to prevent it, for whom could the task be more fitting than for the people of Athens? That then, was the aim of my policy; and when I saw Philip reducing all mankind to servitude, I opposed him, and without ceasing warned and exhorted you to make no surrender.
{73} But the Peace, Aeschines, was in reality broken by Philip, when he seized the corn-ships, not by Athens. (To the clerk.) Bring the decrees themselves, and the letter of Philip, and read them in order. (To the jury.) For they will make it clear who is responsible, and for what.
{74} [A decree is read.]
{75} This decree then was proposed by Eubulus, not by me; and the next by Aristophon; he is followed first by Hegesippus, and he by Aristophon again, and then by Philocrates, then by Cephisophon, and then by all of them. But I proposed no decree upon this subject. (To the clerk.) Read.
[Decrees are read.]
{76} As then I point to these decrees, so, Aeschines, do you point to a decree of any kind, proposed by me, which makes me responsible for the war. You cannot do so: for had you been able, there is nothing which you would sooner have produced. Indeed, even Philip himself makes no charge against me as regards the war, though he complains of others. (To the clerk.) Read Philip's letter itself.