"Without adding or taking away, only slightly altering our present
chaos, I have suggested a uniform scheme whereby each man can do
the duties fitted to his years and his opportunities. I have nowhere
proposed that you should divide the earnings of the workers among
the unemployable, nor that you should slack and amuse yourselves and
be reduced to beggary while somebody else is fighting for you—for
that is what is happening now."
What a speech is here! Doles, interruptions of men who tell the truth, organised democratic corruption, waste of public money on whitewash are familiar to the unhappy British tax-payer. Where is our Demosthenes who dare appeal to the electorate to sweep the system and its prospering advocates back into the darkness?
Having captured Olynthus in 348 and razed it to the ground, Philip attacked Euboea. A further advance was checked by a disgraceful peace engineered by Philocrates and Aeschines in 346. The embassy which obtained it was dodged by Philip until he had made the maximum of conquest; he had excluded the Phocians from its scope, a people of primary importance because they controlled Thermopylae, but a week after signing the peace he had destroyed Phocian unity and usurped their place on the great Council which met at Delphi. This evident attack on the liberty of southern Greece raised a fever of excitement at Athens. The war-party clamoured for instant action; strangely enough Demosthenes advised his city to observe the peace. In contrast with his fiery audience he speaks with perfect coolness and calm. He reviews the immediate past, explains the shameful part played by an actor Neoptolemus who persuaded Athens to make the peace, then realised all his property and went to live in Macedon; he describes the good advice he gave them which they did not follow, and bases his claim to speak not on any cleverness but on his incorruptibility.
"Our true interest reveals itself to me in its real outlines as I
judge the existing situation. But whenever a man throws a bribe
into the opposite scale it drags the reason after it; the corrupt
person will never afterwards have any true or sane judgment about
anything."
In the present case the real point at issue is clear enough. It is a question of fighting not Philip but the whole body of states who were represented at the Delphic Council, for they would fly to arms at once if Athens renounced the Peace; against such a combination she could not survive, just as the Phocians could not cope with the combined attack of Macedonia, Thessaly and Thebes, natural enemies united for a brief moment to achieve a common end. After all, a seat on the Delphic Council was a small matter; only fools would go to war for an unsubstantial shadow.
Firmly planted in Greece itself, Philip started intriguing in Peloponnesus, supporting Argos, Megalopolis and Messene against Sparta. An embassy to these three cities headed by Demosthenes warned them of the treacherous friendship. Returning to Athens in 344 he delivered his Second Philippi, which contains an account of the speeches of the recent tour. Philip acted while Athens talked.
"The result is inevitable and perhaps reasonable; each of you
excels in that wherein you are most diligent—he in deeds, you
in words."
Hence comes the intrigue against Sparta. He can dupe stupid people like the Thebans, or the Peloponnesians; warning therefore is necessary. To the latter he said:—
"You now stare at Philip offering and promising things; if you
have any sense, pray you may never see him practising his tricks
and evasions. Cities have invented all kinds of protections and
safeguards such as stockades, walls, trenches—all of which are
made by hand and expensive. But men of sense have inherited from
Nature one defence, good and salutary—especially democrats against
despots—namely, mistrust. If you hold fast to this, you will never
come to serious harm. You hanker after liberty, I suppose. Cannot
you see that Philip's very title is the exact negation of it? Every
king or despot is a foe to freedom and an adversary of law. Beware
lest while seeking to be quit of a war you find a master."
He then mentions the silly promises of advantages to come which induced Athens to make the infamous Peace, and quotes the famous remark whereby the traitor gang raised a laugh while in the act of selling their country. "Demosthenes is naturally a sour and peevish fellow, for he drinks water." Drawing their attention to this origin of all their trouble, he asks them to remember their names—at the same time remarking that even if a man deserved to die, punishment should be suspended if it meant loss and ruin to the State.