He refuses to believe that a Greek mercenary army would fight against its country, while the Thebans, who notoriously sided with Persia in 480, would give much for an opportunity of redeeming this old sin against Greece.
"The rest of the Greeks, as long as they considered the Persian
their common enemy, had numerous blessings; but when they began to
regard him as their friend they experienced such woes as no man could
have invented for them even in his curses. Whom then Providence and
Destiny have shown useless as a friend and most advantageous as a foe,
shall we fear? Rather let us commit no injustice for our own sakes and
save the rest from commotion and strife."
Such is the outline of the speech on the Navy-boards. Two years later he displayed qualities of no mean order. Sparta and Thebes were quarrelling for the leadership. Arcadia had revolted from Sparta, the centre of the disaffection being Megalopolis; ambassadors from the latter city and from Sparta begged Athenian aid. In the heat of the excitement men's judgments were not to be trusted. "The difficulty of giving sound advice is well known," says the orator.
"If a man tries to take a middle course and you have not the
patience to hear, he will win the approval of neither party but
will be maligned by both. If such a fate awaits me, I would rather
appear to be talking nonsense than allow any party to deceive you
into what I know is not your wisest policy."
The question was, should Athens join Thebes or Sparta, both ancient foes?
"I would like to ask those who say they hate either, whether they
hate the one for the sake of the other or for your sake. If for the
sake of the other party, then you can trust neither, for both are mad;
if for your sake, why do they try to strengthen one of these two
cities unduly? You can with perfect ease keep Thebes weak without
making Sparta strong, as I will prove. You will find that the main
cause of woe and ruin is unwillingness to act with simple honesty."
After a rapid calculation of possibilities he suggests the following plan.
"War between Thebes and Sparta is certain. If Thebes is beaten to
the ground, as she deserves to be, Sparta will not be unduly powerful,
for these Arcadian neighbours will restore the balance; if Thebes
recovers and saves herself, she will still be weak if you ally
yourselves with Arcadia and protect her. It is expedient then in
every way neither to sacrifice Arcadia nor let that country imagine
that it survives through its own power or through any other power than
yours."
The calm voice of the cool-headed statesman is everywhere audible in this admirable little speech.
The power of discounting personal resentment and thinking soberly is apparent in the speech for the Freedom of Rhodes, delivered about this time. Rhodes had offended Athens by revolting in the Social war of 357-5 with the help of the well-known Carian king Mausolus. For a time that monarch had treated Rhodes well; later he overthrew the democracy and placed the power in the hands of the oligarchs. When Queen Artemisia succeeded to the throne of Caria the democrats begged Athens to aid them in recovering their liberty. Deprecating passion of any kind, Demosthenes points out the real question at issue. The record of the oligarchs is a bad one; to overthrow the democracy they had won over some of the leading citizens whom they banished when they had attained their object. Their faithless conduct promised no hope of a firm alliance with Athens. The Rhodian question was to be the acid test of her political creed.