No More Learning

'A favourable answer was received; and we have reason
to believe that now there was an inclination in favour
of peace. At first it was otherwise_ Even Eubulus and
his party, who held war the worst of all evils, were
constrained to speak of Philip as an enemy. They
went further; they attempted, by embassies into the
Peloponnese, to raise some sort of coalition against him.
Among other places they visited Megalopolis, where,
however, their overtures met with but a cold reception.
Athens, as we have had occasion to notice, had made a
blunder some years before in not following the counsel
of Demosthenes when he advised that the Megalopoli-
tans should be supported against Sparta. Now she
found that they were not to be roused into action by
what no doubt seemed to them a comparatively remote
danger. There would, too, have been some political in-
convenience in an alliance with them. Such an alli-
ance would have meant a rupture with Sparta, and a
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? 94 _ DEM OSTHENES.
'friendly attitude towards Thebes, a state against which
Athenian feeling was peculiarly bitter. As soon as
it seemed clear that there was no prospect of organising
a combination throughout Greece against Philip, the
wish for peace grew in strength, and the people were
not averse to opening negotiations with their powerful
enemy.
It is at this juncture that the name of Demosthenes'
famous rival jEschines first comes before us. He rose
to be one of the foremost Athenian orators and states-
men from a very lowly origin. His father kept what
we should call a preparatory: school, and he himself
began life as an inferior actor and a government clerk.
He was a man of immense industry and ability, and
was naturally endowed with all the qualities which go
to make an orator. He was one of the envoys sent
on the mission to the Peloponnese, which had for
its purpose the stirring up of the Greeks against
Macedonian aggression. It appears that he addressed
a very powerful appeal to the Arcadian Assembly at
Megalopolis, fiercely denouncing all traitors to the
liberties of Greece, and stigrnatising Philip as a "blood-
stained barbarian. " Such was the beginning of the
political life of a man who subsequently allowed him-
self to become the means of furthering that "bar- .
barian's" most dangerous designs upon Greece and her
liberties.
In the negotiations of this period between Athens
and Philip, iEschines took a leading part as an envoy.
So, too, did Demosthenes himself; and the hostile
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? PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 95
relations between them, which subsequently gave oc-
casion to their memorable oratorical contest, date from
this time. We have for the most part to depend on
the conflicting statements of the two orators for our
knowledge of the circumstances by which Athens, two
years after the ruin of Olynthus, was drawn into a
shameful peace. It almost seems as if she wilfully
allowed herself to make one stupid blunder after
another. But this is not a true view of the case.
Athens, no doubt, might have done much better under
the guidance of really firm and very skilful statesman-
ship; but it must be remembered that the situation was
extremely complicated, and it was barely possible to
foresee even approximately the course and tendency
of events. After the destruction of Olynthus it must
have seemed clear that Philip was the enemy of
Greece; and that, consequently, it was the duty and
policy of Athens to regard him in this light, and
decline all negotiations with him. But, as we have
seen, 'Athens was not able to organise a confederacy
of the Greek states against him; and if she had de-
cided to fight him, she must have felt that she would
have to fight single-handed. VVhen to this considera-
tion was added the desire to recover some of her own
citizens, now prisoners in Philip's hands--when, too,
she found that he was still courteous and conciliatory---
we cannot be surprised that she shrank from a struggle
which would have tasked her resources to the utter-
most. It might, perhaps, have been better and safer
for her to have made any sacrifice, and have at once
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? 96 ' DEMOSTHENES.
decided on war against the destroyer of thirty Greek
cities; but it was not easy for her to see her way to
such a step alone and unsupported.
The relations, too, of the states of Greece to each
other and to Athens presented many difficulties. N ever
had there been a time when it was harder to unite
them. Sparta, the leading state of the Peloponnese,
could under no circumstances be easily stimulated into
exertions in the Greek cause. Her statesmen were apt
to take a narrow and selfish view of the politics of
Greece. The other states of the Peloponnese were more
afraid of being oppressed by Spartan ascendancy, of
which they had had actual experience, than of danger
from Macedon, of which they knew next to nothing.
Here, therefore, there was but a poor prospect of coali-
tion. Thebes and Phocis, the two remaining states,
were themselves engaged in the Sacred War. Phocis
had appropriated to itself the treasures of the temple
of Delphi, and had thus put itself in a false position
before the Greek world, as being guilty of sacrilege.
And as for Thebes, it had no really great and far-
sighted statesmen; nor had it, to the extent which
Athens still had, a sense of its duty to Greece. Its
policy was often particularly selfish; and even under
the most favourable circumstances, it would have been
most diflicult to have persuaded Thebans to co-operate
heartily with Athenians. So anxious was it to crush
its Phocian neighbours, with whom it had long been
involved in a troublesome war, that when Philip
undertook to crush them it welcomed the offer. The
bait he held out was tempting; but the Thebans ought
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? PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 97'
to have had enough Greek sentiment not to listen to
his proposals, the acceptance of which would probably
lead to the conquest and destruction of a Greek people
by a barbarian. Philip, of course, could justify himself
by saying that he was attacking those who were, in fact,
the enemies of Greece, inasmuch as by the pillage of the
sacred treasures of Delphi they had outraged the best
and truest Greek feeling. But to conquer Phocis he
must be master of Thermopylae; and if he once gained
this position, it could hardly be doubted that he would be
able to do as he pleased, and that Thebes, if he chose to
pick a quarrel with her, would be in the utmost jeopardy.
All this was recognised by Demosthenes, and, as it
seems, by the Athenians generally. They were quite
alive to the importance of garrisoning Thermopylae,
and they sent a force there. But the Phocian leader,
Phalaecus, from some sort of jealousy towards Athens,
and a fear that political intrigues would be set on foot
against him to deprive him of his influence with his
countrymen, refused to admit the Athenian troops into
possession of the important pass. It was now difficult
for the Athenians to know how to act. For anything
they knew to the contrary, Phalaecus might have some
understanding with Philip, and be willing to surrender
the pass to him. This position was perplexing and
disheartening, while to Philip it was a grand oppor-
tunity. If he could contrive to conclude peace with
Athens, and to get the Phocians excluded from it, he
would be able, with some sort of excuse, to occupy
Thermopylae and invade Phocis. And in doing this,
he would have Thebes on his side.
A. 0. S. S. vol. iv. ' G
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? 98 DE. MOSTHENES.
After much negotiation, this was the result which he
managed to accomplish. Peace was concluded between
Philip and Athens, their respective allies being included.
While the negotiations were pending, and the Athe-
nian envoys were waiting at Pella for an interview
with the King, he was in Thrace, and gained some
important successes over the chief of the country,
Cersobleptes, at this time an ally of Athens. The
effect of this was to weaken and endanger the hold
which Athens had on the Thracian Chersonese;-a
specially valuable possession. Indeed, peace was
made ultimately on terms which the Athenians had
not originally contemplated. This, Demosthenes main-
tained, was due to the treacherous connivance of
T/Eschines and of some of the other envoys, who loit-
ered at Pella when they ought to have at once made
their way to Philip in Thrace, and settled matters with
him on the basis which had been mutually agreed on.
But the most terrible mistake was the exclusion of the
Phocians from the treaty. The Athenians were some-
how cajoled into believing that Philip meant them
well; and even Demosthenes did not at the time
protest against the abandonment of Phocis. The
error was irretrievable, for it amounted to nothing
less than letting Philip become master of Thermopylae.
The Phocians could not hold the pass without support.
When they found themselves isolated, their leader,
Ph\alaecus, after being summoned by Philip to give up
possession of it, consented to do so under a convention,
and withdrew his forces. The surrender of Phocis to
Philip followed as a matter of" course. He dealt with
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? PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 99
the country and its towns as he had dealt two years
before with Chalcidice and its towns. Phocis was
utterly ruined. Another Greek state had now fallen
before the Macedonian destroyer, and the prospects of
Greece generally might well seem gloomy.
The calamity, however, was not so shocking to the
Greek world as one might have supposed it would have
been. The Phocians, as has been explained, had been
offenders against the common law and traditions of
Greece, and their destruction might be regarded as a
divine judgment. Even the man who executed it,
though a barbarian according to Greek notions, might
have some claim to be considered as the representative
of a sacred cause. In one sense he had been doing the
very thing which the voice of Greece had been calling
for. The Thebans were especially grateful to him, and
forgot in their blindness the mischief which by this
last stroke he had inflicted on Greece. Now that the
Phocians had ceased to exist as a Greek people, their
place in the Amphictyonic Council was, when the
great Pythian festival came round after a four years'
interval, conferred on Philip. He was even nominated
president of the august ceremony. In all this Thebes
heartily concurred, as also did several smaller states.
Athens and Sparta, indeed, held aloof. But when
Philip's envoys announced to the Athenians the new
position he had acquired with the consent of so many
Greek states, they did not like to refuse concurrence in
what a large part of Greece seemed to approve.
Strong as Philip was before, he was now immensely
strengthened, and fresh chances were open to him for
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? 100 DEMOSTHENES.
interfering actively in Greek politics. Membership of
the Amphictyonic Council was, in fact, equivalent to
naturalisation. Philip was now, in theory at least, a
Greek, and no longer a barbarian. The Athenian
Isocrates could, with a show of reason, address a letter
to him, inviting him to reconcile under his leadership
the great states of Greece, and invade Asia with a view
to the overthrow of the Persian empire and the libera-
tion of the Asiatic Greeks. But the Athenians gene-
rally felt deep anger and vexation at the issue of events,
and could hardly make up their minds to sit still
under the disgrace of the surrender of Thermopylae
and the intrusion of a foreign prince into the heart of
Greece.
Demosthenes, as has been said, had no sympathy
with the ideas of Isocrates. He still clung to the belief
in a general independent Greek world, of which his
own state ought to be the most perfect representative.
Yet on this occasion he spoke in favour of the in-
glorious peace just concluded. Miserable as it was, he
argued that to break it would be to give Philip a pre-
text for uniting other Greek states in war against them.
The tone of his speech is confident and decided. The
peace was bad and dishonourable, no doubt, but to
repudiate it would be simply madness. It would be
putting themselves gratuitously in the wrong. "The
shadow at Delphi," as he calls the subject of the Sacred
war which had been waged between Thebes and Pho-
cis, was not worth fighting for, more especially when
they would have to fight a Greek confederacy. It
could not have been altogether pleasant to Demosthenes
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? COUNSEL OF DEMOSTHENES. 101
to advise acquiescence in a peace which he and his
countrymen generally felt to be humiliating. But as
they had drifted into it, all they could now do was to
make the best of it, and guard themselves from new
aggressions.
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? CHAPTER X.
DEMOSTHENES CONTINUES HIS SPEECHES AGAINST
PHILIP-
FROM the peace of 346 no. we may date a revolution
in the Greek world. Philip had acquired a new posi-
tion, and it was acknowledged that he had henceforth
a right to take a part in Greek politics. Even Demos-
thenes had to recognise the fact of a change of sen-
timent towards him. Isocrates could argue more
plausibly than ever that everything pointed to him as
the true head and champion of Greece, and, eonse--
quently, as the predestined conqueror of Asia, the old
antagonist of Greece. ' '
The peace just concluded was soon seen to be a
thoroughly hollow one. Philip, it was evident, had no
intention of being really bound by it, any longer than
it answered his purpose. This the Athenians could
hardly fail to understand, however much they might
try to deceive themselves; and their feeling towards
him was made up of fear and anger. We might have
thought that he could have at once organised a Greek
confederacy against Persia with almost a certainty of
' success, but he seems to have been too cautious and
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? sPEEOHEs AGAINST PHILIP. 103
astute to expose himself to any serious risks. His policy
was to secure a yet firmer footing in the Greek world.
Athens, he knew, was his only formidable enemy.
There was still a possibility that she might rouse Greece
against him, and overpower him by a coalition of which
she would be the head. He must therefore endeavour
to isolate her by political intrigues, and, by driving her
out of the Chersonese, strike a fatal blow at the com-
merce on which her prosperity largely depended.
With these views he began to meddle with the politics
of the Peloponnese.
There circumstances favoured his
designs. He had the opportunity of playing the part
of champion and deliverer to the oppressed. Sparta was
the great object of dread to the people of Argos, of
Megalopolis, and of Messene. They could not imagine
that they had any other enemy to fear. Thebes
had hitherto been their protector, but Thebes was no
longer in a condition to command their confidence.
It was to Philip that they now not unnaturally looked.
It was hardly to be expected that they would abstain
from invoking his aid against a pressing and imme-
diate danger, because it may have been suggested
to them that they were thereby imperilling the best
interests of Greece. What they wanted was help
against Sparta, and this Philip promised them. He
would, he said, soon be with them in person; and
meanwhile he sent them some troops, and bade Sparta
refrain from any attempt on Messeno.
This was a clever movement on Philip's part, and
Athens could not very well protest against it or seek to
thwart it. All that could be said was that, judging
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? 104 DEMOSTHENES.
from the past, it was an interference which ultimately
meant mischief. Demosthenes succeeded in bringing
the Athenians to this point of view. He induced them
to send an embassy, himself being at the head of it,
into the Peloponnese, the express object of which was
to defeat Philip's diplomacy. _He visited several of
the cities, and addressed warnings to them based on
the bad faith of Philip generally, and on his treatment
of Olynthus particularly. He told them plainly that
in their fear and hatred of Sparta they were allowing
themselves to become his accomplices in enslaving
and ruining Greece. It seems that one of the chief
arguments on which he insisted was the utter impossi-
bility of a sincere and hearty union betwegriree states
and a despot. This 'wonldrbe sure to impress the
democratic"party--always a powerful element in a
Greek state. He was heard--so he tells us himself in
one of his subsequent speeches--with approbation and
applause, but he failed to convince. There were, as he
says in another speech, those in every state who were
willing to be controlled by a foreign power, if only they
could get the upper hand of their fellow-citizens. The
old love of freedom and of legal government, which
had been the great glory of Greece, seemed to be on
the wane. Still Demosthenes accomplished something.
Philip thought it necessary to send envoys to Athens
with some sort of apology for himself and his general
policy; and an embassy also came, perhaps at his sug-
gestion, from some of the states of the Peloponnese.
Athens was in a perplexing position. Philip could
plausibly say that the Athenians were unreasonably
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? SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. \ 105
suspicious towards him, and even, in fact, disregarding
the spirit of the peace recently concluded. The envoys
from Argos and Messene might fairly complain of the
seeming connection between Athens and Sparta, and
argue that it was a menace to the liberties of the
Peloponnese. It was a great and critical occasion, and
called for able statesmanship. It was an opportunity
to raise yet higher the character of Demosthenes as a
public adviser, and he availed himself of it. In the
speech which he delivered in B. 0. 344, known as the
second Philippic, he spoke out in the plainest lan-
guage both against Philip's insinuations and against
the ill-timed complaints of the Peloponnesian envoys.
He vindicated at the same time his own policy, and
denounced the Philippising faction, in which his rival
Ziischines was now a conspicuous figure.
Philip, he declares, was the great aggressor of the
age ; he was a plotter against the Whole of Greece. He
repeats what he had said as ambassador to the people
of Messene by way of warning from the past :-
" Ye men of Messene, how do you think the Olyn-
thians would have looked to hear anything against Philip
at those times when he surrendered to them Anthemus,
which all former kings of Macedonia claimed, when he
cast out the Athenian colonists and gave them Potidaea,
thereby incurring your enmity, and giving them the
land to enjoy'! Think you that they expected such
treatment as they got, or would they have believed it
if they had been told'! Nevertheless, after enjoying
for a brief space the possessions of others, they are for
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? IOG DEMOSTHENES.
a long period deprived by Philip of their own, shame-
fully expelled--not only vanquished, but betrayed by
one another and sold. In truth, these too close con-
nections with despots are not safe for free states.
There are manifold contrivances for the guarding and
defending of cities--as ramparts, walls, trenches, and
the like; these are all made with hands and demand
an outlay. But there is one common safeguard inthe
nature of wise men which is a good security for all,
but especially for democracies against despots. What
do I mean! Mistrust. Keep this; hold to this ; pre-
serve this only, and you can never be injured. 'What
do ye desire! Freedom. Then do you not see that
with this Philip's very titles are at variance' ! Every
king and despot is a foe to freedom, an antagonist to
laws. Will ye not beware, lest in seeking to be de-
livered from war you find a master'! "
Yet in a speech delivered three years afterwards,
which we shall shortly notice, Demosthenes suggests
that they might entertain the thought of seeking aid
even from Persia. The suggestion, perhaps, was only
made in desperation, and must not be taken as repre-
senting anything like a change of political sentiments.
To the last Demosthenes was a believer in free and
popular governments as opposed to tyrannies and des-
potisms. Still, as he has to admit, such governments
are liable to be out-manoeuvred by cunning diplomacy.
So it had been with themselves, as he reminds them
in the present speech. They had been persuaded to
believe that Philip, if he became master of Thermo-
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? SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 'I07
pylae, would humble their old enemy Thebes, and give
them Oropus and Euboea in exchange for Amphipolis.
"All these declarations on the hustings," he says,
with the Philippising party in his eye, " I am sure you
remember, though you are not famous for remembering
injuries. While the mischief is only coming and pre-
paring, whilst we hear one another speak, I wish
every man, though he know it well, to be reminded
who it was persuaded you to abandon Phocis and
Thermopylae, by the possession of which Philip com-
mands the road to Attica and Peloponnese, and has
' brought it to this, that you have now to deliberate, not
about claims and interests abroad, but about the de-
fence of your home and a war in Attica, which will be
a grievous shock to every citizen when it comes; and
indeed it commenced from that day of your infatuation.
Had you not been then deceived, there would be noth-
ing now to distress the State. "
One point insisted on in this speech is, that the
struggle in the Greek states was no longer, as it had
hitherto been, one between aristocracy and democracy,
but between Philip's party and its opponents.
The following year witnessed a memorable contest
between Demosthenes and ZEschines. It arose out of
the embassies to Philip and the various negotiations
with_ him, which ended, as we have seen, so unfortu-
nately for Athens and Greece. Zlischines, it will be
remembered, was an adherent of the peace party of
Eubulus ; and Demosthenes now made a great effort
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? 108 DEMOSTHENES.
to discredit him, as being, in fact, corruptly responsible
for Philip's occupation of Thermopylae, the destruction
of Phocis, and the new and powerful position which
he had been able to assume in Greece. The pleadings
of both the orators in this great cause have come down
to us, and they are specially valuable as supplying us
with materials for the history of an intricate period.
Demosthenes presses his attack with great vehemenoe,
and resorts, as he well knew how, to the most savage
invective. To our minds it is, as a work of art, one
of the least pleasing and satisfactory of his speeches.
There is a coarseness and vulgarity about the vitupera-
tion-and that, too, under circumstances in which very
strong condemnation of his rival must have been felt
to have been a mistake. He taunts Ziischines with
having been all along the conscious tool of Philip's
cunning policy, when it was perfectly well known that
he had himself, from want of clear foresight perhaps,
not steadily opposed that policy at more than one criti-
cal point. He was not successful ; but the Victory won
by his rival was a very poor one. ]Eschines was ac-
quitted only by thirty votes. This implies that, on
the whole, public opinion was against him, though it
may have been felt that distinct and positive evidence
was wanting. We may infer that Demosthenes' polit-
ical influence was very great. He failed probably be-
cause, as Dr Thirlwall remarks, he had an extremely
intricate case, and could not attack rEschines effec-
tively without having from time to time to defend
himself and explain certain ambiguities in his own
share in the negotiations.
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? SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 109
Athens, as has been said, was now particularly vul-
nerable in the Thracian Chersonese and the north of
the Zligean. To these points the restless Philip directed
his attention in 342-341 13. 0. It could not be doubted
that he was meditating the annexation of this important
district, and the conquest of the Greek cities on the
northern shores of the Propontis--Periuthus, Selymbria,
and above all Byzantium. If he could achieve this,
Athens would be completely paralysed. Her maritime
supremacy would be at an end, and her supplies of
corn would be cut off. She would cease to exist as
a commercial power. Philip's designs on Athens in
Thrace were not unlike those of Napoleon I. on Eng-
land in his attacks on Egypt and Spain. It was argued
in Parliament at the time, that in carrying on war
with France in these countries, we were practically
standing on our own defence. Demosthenes took the
same line of argument against Philip. A force had
been sent out from Athens to the Chersonese as an
army of observation on Philip's movements. The
general, Diopeithes, was an able, energetic man ; and it
is interesting to us to know that he was the father of the
poet Menander. There were some disputes between
the Athenian colonists and the Cardians to the north
of the Chersonese. Philip seemed disposed to favour
the latter, upon which Diopeithes at once retaliated by
invading Macedonian territory. He gained some suc-
cesses, and for a while even deprived Philip of some
of his recent conquests. Considering that the peace of
346 B. 0. was still in force, Athens may be said to have
been put in the wrong by her over-zealous general, and
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? 110 DEMOS rrwrvns
Philip sent the people a despatch in which he formally
complained of these encroachments. All his political
adherents at Athens clamoured for the instant recall of
Diopeithes. Like other Athenian generals, Diopeithes,
who commanded some mercenaries, was almost com-
pelled to provide for them by expeditions which could
not be strictly justified. Still, it might be truly argued
in his favour that he was really repelling a dangerous
aggressor. And on this ground Demosthenes pleaded his
cause, and argued that he should be continued in his
command. The speech he delivered on this occasion
--" On behalf of the Chersonese," as it has been
entitled--contains the clear and powerful reasonings of
a sagacious statesman. >
The people, he maintains, ought to deal with their
enemies before they call their own servants to account.
It was very well for Philip to complain of an infringe-
ment of the peace in this particular instance ; but was
it not notorious that he had himself deprived Athens
of her own possessions! It was a mere blind to say,
as_some said, that they must make up their minds to
have either war or peace. " If it appears that from
the very first Philip has robbed us of our territories,
and has been all along incessantly gathering the spoil
of other nations, Greek and barbarian, for the materials
of an attack upon you, what do they mean by saying
we must have war or peace' ! " \
"Consider what is actually going on. Philip is
staying with a large army in Thrace, and sending for
reinforcements, as eye-witnesses report, from Macedonia
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? SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 111
and Thessaly. Now, should he wait for the trade-
winds, and then march to the siege of Byzantium, think
ye that the Byzantines would persist in their present
folly, and would not invite and implore your aid'! I
do not believe it. N 0; they will receive any people,
even those they distrust more than us, sooner than
surrender their city to Philip--unless, indeed, he is
beforehand with them and captures it. If, then, we are
unable to sail northward, and there be no help at
hand, nothing can prevent their destruction. Well;
let us say the Byzantines are infatuated and besotted.
Very likely; yet they must be rescued, because it is
good for Athens. Nor is it clear that he will not
attack the Cher_go_rg_se; nay, if we may judge from the
"etter he sent/us, he says he will chastise the people in
Ihe Chersonese. If the present army be kept on foot,
it will be able to defend that country, and attack some
of Philip's dominions. But if it become disbanded,
what shall we do if he march against the Chersonesei
With such facts and arguments before you, so far from
disbanding this army which Diopeithes is endeavouring
to organise for Athens, you ought yourselves to provide
an additional one, to support him with funds, and with
other friendly co--operation. " "
In the following passage he inveighs against his
political opponents, and the extreme licence of speech
allowed to them in practically advocating the interests of
Philip :-- _
"This, you must be convinced, is a struggle for
existence. You cannot overcome your enemies abroad
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-27 04:56 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/coo. 31924026456347 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 112 DEMOSTHENES.
till you have punished your enemies, his ministers, at
home. They will be the stumbling-blocks which pre-
vent you reaching the others. Why, do you suppose,
Philip now insults you'! To other people he at least
renders services though he deceives them, while he is
already threatening you. Look, for instance, at the
Thessalians. It was by many benefits conferred on
them that he seduced them into their present bondage.
And then the Olynthians, again,--how he cheated them,
first giving them Potidaea and several other places,
is really beyond description. Now he is enticing the
Thebans by giving up to them Boeotia, and delivering
them from a toilsome and vexatious war. Each of
these peoples did get a certain advantage ; but some of
them have suffered what all the world knows; others
will suffer whatever may hereafter befall them. As
for you, I recount not all that has been taken from
you, but how shamefully have you been treated and
despoiled! Why is it that Philip deals so differently
with you and with others! Because yours is the only
state in Greece in which the privilege is allowed of
speaking for the enemy, and a citizen taking a bribe
may safely address the Assembly, though you have
been robbed of your dominions.