No More Learning

It was not in being rejected by the oligarchy, but in being called to share in it, that he showed his attachment to the people. He might have shared in the government of the few ; he might even have enjoyed more authority than any in dividual of their number ; but he chose to suffer injuries from his fellow-citizens rather than to betray them. Of this it
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would have been impossible to have convinced you before the late revolutions in our government ; but the commotions which we have now experienced discover the true character of the citizens, and enable us to distinguish the partisans of oligarchy from the friends of the constitution, and the peaceable subjects of both from those who are indifferent as to all forms of gov ernment provided they have a share in the administration. In the course of these seditions he was twice expelled by your en emies. In the first instance, his banishment opened the way to your servitude ; and in the second, it was the immediate con sequence of your misfortunes — so intimately were your for tunes connected, so much did you share in his advantages, and so sensibly did he feel your adversity.
There were some who thought unfavorably of his public character, not judging by his actions, but because they supposed that supreme power was naturally coveted by all men, and that he was most capable to obtain it. This however, is his greatest praise, that while he possessed the means of enslaving his fellow-citizens, he chose to live on an equality with them. The variety of instances in which he demonstrated his principles, makes me at a loss which of them to select: those omitted always appear more considerable than such as I relate. One thing is evident, that those are naturally most attached to any government who are the greatest gainers by its continuance, and who have the most to lose by its subversion. But who was happier than he during the democracy ? Who was more admired and respected ? Upon the dissolution of that form of government, who was deprived of greater hopes, of a more ample fortune, or of higher reputation and glory? Under the last usurpation, the Thirty contented themselves with ban ishing other citizens from Athens, but him they proscribed from all Greece. Did not Lysander and the Lacedfemonians consider the death of my father, and the dissolution of your democracy, as things so inseparably connected that they la bored equally for both ? It was to no purpose, they knew, to make you agree to the demolition of your walls, while they left alive the man who could rebuild them.
The misfortunes, therefore, to which he was exposed, no less than the victories which he obtained, show his good will to the people. He desired the same government with you, he had the same friends, the same enemies, and he shared alike in your good and bad fortune. He was ever involved in dangers, some
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times with you, sometimes for you, but always in your behalf. In every respect, surely, he behaved differently from Charicles, who desired to be subject to the enemy and to tyrannize over his fellow-citizens ; and who, though he remained inactive during his banishment, had no sooner returned than he became a misfortune to his country. And you, the friend and kins man of such a traitor, you, who sat in a senate with tyrants, are now become audacious enough to traduce the citizens ! Have you no remembrance of the amnesty, by virtue of which you are at present an inhabitant of Athens? Are you not sensible, that, were the public to exact an account of what is past, you would now be exposed to greater dangers than I am? But the state, faithful to its oaths, will not only refuse to punish me for the pretended injuries of my father, but will pardon you for the crimes of which you are actually guilty. You have not the same defense with him : it was not in banish ment but while in office, it was not by necessity but from choice, it was not to avenge injuries but by being yourself the author of them, that you brought ruin on your country. Were this to be remembered, what defense could you plead, what excuse could you make ?
But, perhaps, on some future occasion, gentlemen, when he himself is in danger, I shall speak at more length of the injuries he has committed. I now entreat you not to abandon me to my enemies, nor to involve me in calamities too hard to be borne. Already have I had my full measure of distress. In my early infancy I was left an orphan by the death of my mother and the banishment of my father. Before I had at tained four years of age, I was in danger of being cruelly mur dered. When a boy I was expelled from the city under the Thirty Tyrants. After the citizens who seized the Piraeus were recalled, the rest were indemnified for the loss of their property. I alone, on account of the power and virulence of my enemies, received no redress. Having suffered so many misfortunes, and been twice deprived of all my possessions, I am now defendant in an action for five talents. This cause, though merely pecuniary, may drive me from my country. The same accusations have not similar effects against persons in different circumstances. The rich lose their fortunes, but those who are poor as I am lose their honor and reputation ; a loss greater than banishment itself, as it is more disagreeable to be despised by our fellow-citizens than to be obliged to live among strangers.
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I now, therefore, crave your assistance ; I entreat that you will not suffer me to be insulted by my enemies, to be despised by my country, and to become remarkable above all men for my misfortunes. There is no occasion for many words; facts speak for themselves. It should be sufficient to move your compassion, to see me involved in an unjust accusation, endangered in whatever is most precious to me, suffering what is unworthy both of myself and of my fore fathers, deprived of the most splendid fortune, and obnoxious to all the vicissitudes of life. Though these considerations be extremely grievous, yet there are others still more afflicting : that I should be punished at the instance of a man from whom I am entitled to demand justice ; that I should be dishonored on account of my father's victory at Olympus, which to every other son would have been the source of triumph and glory ; that Tisias, who had no merit with the state, should have a powerful influence both in the oligarchy and democracy, while I, who injured neither, should be persecuted by both ; and that you, who agree in no other respect with the Thirty, should unite with them against me, and regard the partner of your misfortune as the object of your resentment.
I8M. VS.
On the Estate of Cleonymus. (Translated by Sir William Jones. )
Polyarchus left three sons, Cleonymus, Dinias, and the father of those for whom Isaeus composed the following speech. The third son dying, his children were committed to the guardianship of Dinias. These young men were heirs to Cleonymus by the laws of Athens, and their grandfather had appointed them successors to their uncle if he should die childless. Cleonymus had, however, a power to dispose of his property : and in a fit of anger toward his brother Dinias, for some real or imagined wrong, had made a will in favor of two remoter kinsmen, Diocles and Posidippus, which, accord ing to the custom of the Athenians, he had deposited with one of the magistrates; but after the death of Dinias he took his nephews under his care, and determined to cancel the will by which they were disinherited. With this intent he sent for the magistrate who kept the testament, but died unexpectedly before an actual revoca tion of it. His nephews then entered upon his estate as heirs at
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law; and the other claimants produced the will which, as Isaeus contends in the person of his clients, was virtually revoked by Cleonymus.
Great has been the change which our fortunes have under gone by the decease of Cleonymus, who when he was alive intended to leave us his estate, but has exposed us by his death to the danger of losing it : and with so modest a reserve, judges, were we bred under his care, that not even as hearers had we at any time entered a court of justice, but now we come hither to defend our whole property ; for our adversaries dispute our right, not only to the possessions of the deceased, but also to our paternal inheritance, of which they boldly assert that he was a creditor. Their own friends, indeed, and relations think it just that we should have an equal share even of those effects which Cleonymus confessedly left them : but our opponents themselves have advanced to such a height of impudence, that they seek to deprive us even of our patrimony ; not ignorant, judges, of what is right and equitable, but conceiving us to be wholly defenseless against their attacks.
Consider, then, on what grounds the parties respectively rest their claims. These men rely on a will which our uncle, who imputed no blame to us, made in resentment against one of our relations, but virtually canceled before his death, having sent Posidippus to the magistrate for the purpose of solemnly revoking it : but we who were his nearest kinsmen, and most intimately connected with him, derive a clear title both from the laws, which have established our right of succession, and from Cleonymus himself, whose intention was founded on the friendship subsisting between us ; not to urge that his father and our grandfather, Polyarchus, had appointed us to succeed him if he should die without children. Such and so just being our claim, these associates, who are nearly related to us, and who have no color of justice on their side, are not ashamed of contesting our title to an estate about which it would be dis graceful for mere strangers to contend. Nor do we seem, judges, in this cause to have the same dispositions toward each other; for I do not consider it as the greatest of my present misfortunes to be unjustly disturbed with litigation, but to be attacked by those whom it would be improper even to repel with any degree of violence ; nor should I think it a lighter calamity to injure my relations in my own defense than to be
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injured myself by their unprovoked assault : but they, judges, have different sentiments, and appear against us with a formid able array of friends whom they have summoned and advocates whom they have retained, leaving behind them no part of their forces, as if they were going to inflict vengeance on open enemies, and not to wrong those whom they were bound by every natural and social tie to assist. Their shameless audacity and sordid avarice will be more clearly perceived by you when you have heard the whole case, which I shall begin to relate from that part whence you will soonest and most easily learn the state of our controversy.
Dinias, our father's brother, was our guardian, he being our elder uncle, and we orphans ; at which time, judges, a violent enmity subsisted between him and Cleonymus. Whether of the two had been the cause of the dissension, it is not, perhaps, my business to determine ; but so far, at least, I may pro nounce them both deservedly culpable, that having till then been friends, and no just pretext arising for a breach of their friendship, they so hastily became enemies on account of some idle words. Now, Cleonymus himself when he recovered from that illness, in which he made his will, declared that he wrote it in anger : not blaming us, but fearing lest at his death he should leave us under age, and lest Dinias our guardian should have the management of our estate ; for he could not support the pain of thinking that his property would be possessed dur ing our infancy, and that sacred rites would be performed at his sepulchre by one whom of all his relations he most hated while he lived. With these sentiments (whether laudable or not, I leave undecided) he made a disposition of his fortune ; and when Dinias, immediately after, asked him publicly whether we or our father had incurred his displeasure, he answered in the presence of many citizens that he charged us with no fault whatever, but made the will in resentment against him, and not from any other motive. How indeed, judges, could he have determined, if he preserved his senses, to injure us who had given him no cause of complaint ?
But his subsequent conduct will afford the strongest proof that by this he had no intention of wronging us ; for when Dinias was dead, and our affairs were in a distressed condition, he was so far from neglecting us, or suffering us to want neces saries, that he bred us in his own house, whither he himself had conducted us, and saved our patrimony from unjust creditors
VOL. IV. — 11
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who sought insidiously to deprive us of it ; nor were our con. cerns less attentively managed by him than his own. From these acts, therefore, rather than from his written testament, it is proper to collect his intention toward us ; and not to be biased by what he did through anger, by which all of us are liable to be hurried into faults, but to admit the clear evidence of those facts which afterward explained his design. Still farther : in his last hours he manifested the affection which he bore us ; for, being confined by the disorder of which he died, he was desirous of revoking his will, and with that intent ordered Posidippus to bring the officer who had the care of it, which order he not only disobeyed, but even refused admit tance to one of the magistrates who came by chance to the door. Cleonymus, enraged at this, gave the same command on the next day to Diocles ; but, though he seemed not dangerously ill, and we had great hopes of his recovery, he suddenly expired that very night.
First, then, I will prove by witnesses that he made this will, not from any dislike to us, but from a settled aversion to Di- nias ; next, that when Dinias was no more, he superintended all our affairs, and gave us an education in his house, to which he had removed us ; and thirdly, that he sent Posidippus for the magistrate, but Posidippus was so far from obeying the order that when one of the proper officers came to the door, he refused to introduce him. Call those who will prove the truth of my assertion. (It is done. ) Call likewise those who will swear that Cephisander and the other friends of our adversaries were of opinion that the whole estate should be divided, and that we should have a third part of all which Cleonymus pos sessed. (It is done. ) Now, it seems to me, judges, that all those who contend for the right of succession to estates, when like us they have shown themselves to be both nearest in blood to the person deceased and most connected with him in friend ship, may be excused from adding a superfluity of other argu ments ; but since men who have neither of those claims have the boldness to dispute with us for that which is legally ours, and to set up a fictitious title, I am willing in a few words to give them an answer. They ground their pretensions on this will, and admit that Cleonymus sent for the magistrate ; not, say they, with an intent to cancel it, but with a resolution to correct it, and to secure the legacy more strongly in their favor.
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Now consider, whether it be more probable that our uncle, at a time when he was most intimate with us, should wish to recall a will made in anger or should meditate by what means he might be surest to deprive us of his inheritance. Other men, indeed, usually repent at length of the wrongs which they have done their friends in their passion ; but our opponents would convince you that when he showed the warmest regard for us, he was most desirous of establishing the will which, through resentment against our guardian, he had made to our disadvantage. So that even should we confess this idle fiction, and should you persuade yourselves to believe
you must suppose him to have been mad in the highest degree for what madness could be greater than to injure us because he had quarreled with Dinias, and to make disposi tion of his property by which he took no revenge on his enemy, but ruined his dearest friends, and afterward, when we lived with him on terms of the strictest friendship, and he valued us above all men, to intend that his nephews alone (for such their assertion) should have no share in his fortune? Could any man, judges, in his senses entertain such thought concern ing the distribution of his estate
Thus from their own arguments they have made easy to decide the cause against themselves since he sent for the officer, as we contend, in order to cancel the will, they have not a shadow of right and he was so void of reason as to regard us least who were most nearly connected with him, both by nature and friendship, you would justly decree that his will was not valid.
Consider farther, that the very men who now pretend that Cleonymus designed to establish their legacy durst not obey his order, but dismissed the magistrate who came to the house and thus one of two most opposite things being likely to happen, —either stronger confirmation of the in terest bequeathed to them, or total loss of all interest in the fortune of the testator, — they gave plain indication of what they expected, by refusing to admit the person who kept the will.
To conclude since this cause has been brought before you, and since you have power to determine the contest, give your aid both to us and to him who lies in the grave; and suffer him not, adjure you by all the gods, to be thus despised and insulted by these men but remembering the law by which you
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are to judge, the oath which you have solemnly taken, and the arguments which have been used in the dispute, give a just and pious judgment, conformably to the laws.
Lyctjbgus.
Against Leocrates.
(Translated for this work. )
[Leocrates, who had fled the country after the battle of Chaeronea, had been condemned and disfranchised in his absence. Eight years afterward he returned and tried to have the sentence rescinded, which Lycurgus opposed. The decree mentioned in the first line was issued just after the battle. The Piraeus is the seaport of Athens, five miles off. ]
Gentlemen, you have heard the decree : that the senate of five hundred should go down to the Piraeus under arms, acting as a garrison to the Piraeus, and carry out such instructions as seemed in the public judgment most helpful. And now, gen tlemen, if those exempt from military service on the ground of governmental duties for the city passed their time in battle array, would it seem to you that a few cowards could still occupy the city ? Among them Leocrates here, slinking out of the city, not only fled himself but carried off all his goods and his household sanctities; and consummated such treason that, following his example, the priests deserted the temples, the guards deserted the walls — but the city and the country were left.
At those times, gentlemen, who did not feel for the city — not merely the citizen, but even the immigrant who had come in the past to settle among us? Who was there with such hatred of democracy or of Athens that he could bear to see himself taking no hand in the struggle, when defeat and befallen calamity were announced to the people, and the city was on tiptoe as to what might yet befall, and the hope of safety for the people lay in those born more than fifty years before ; when noble ladies were seen at the gates terrified and cowering, each asking if some one were still alive — a husband, a father, or brothers — a sight unworthy of themselves and of the city ; and men with decrepit bodies, venerable in age and exempt by law from military service, all through the city could
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be seen on the street, utterly ruined in their old age and equipped for the field ? But of the many sad things that befell the city, and of all the misfortunes the citizens had to endure, the one they deplored and wept over most was to see the people decree ing the slaves freemen, the immigrants Athenians, the disfran chised for crime reenfranchised ; — they who of old had prided themselves on being natives and freemen.
To such altered fortunes was the city brought which had formerly striven for the liberties of the other Greeks, but in these times was content could it fight for the safety of its own ; and she who had once lorded it over the vast territory of the barbarians had now to fight against the Macedonians on her own ; and the people whom formerly the Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians and the Greek inhabitants of Asia had besought for aid, itself had now to ask aid from Andros, Ceos, Troezene, and Epidaurus. Now, gentlemen, as to him who in such terrors and such dangers and such humiliation abandoned his city, and would not put on armor for his country nor offer his person for use by the generals, but turned runaway and betrayer of the people's safety — what judge who loves his city and wishes to do his duty will remit this sentence, what pleader summoned here will defend this traitor to the city, who had not spirit to lament his country's misfortunes, and would contribute nothing to the safety of the city and the people?
Why, at those times there was no age whatever that did not offer itself for the safety of the city ; the land itself contributed its trees, the very dead their graves, even the temples weapons of war. Some gave their labor toward building the walls, some to the trenches, some to the palisades ; none of those in the city were idle. But for none of these purposes did Leocrates offer the use of his person. Probably when you recall that he neither saw fit to help in or even come to the funeral services of those who laid down their lives at Chaeronea for freedom and the safety of the people, you will think death his proper punish ment ; since, for all him, those men would have had the fate of lying unburied. And yet, passing by their graves eight years after, he is not ashamed to call their country his own.
On this topic, gentlemen, I wish to speak a little more in detail, and I beg you to listen without regarding such discourse on the public wars irrelevant; for eulogies of patriots are clearly a touchstone of the opposite. Moreover, the praise is just which forms the one reward of patriots for peril ; in this
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case because they poured out their lives for the common safety of the city, and were unremitting in the city's public and com mon wars. For they encountered the enemy at the confines of Boeotia to fight for the freedom of the Greeks ; not trusting to walls for safety, nor betraying the country to be pillaged by the foe, but holding their own courage a surer safeguard than catapults loaded with stones, and ashamed of seeing the land that reared them ravaged. And rightly; for just as not all have the same regard for parents by blood and those by adop tion, so men are less zealous for countries not theirs by birth but of later acquirement.
But those with such resolves, and sharing dangers equally with the bravest, are not equal participants in fortune ; for the living do not profit by patriotism, but the dead leave glory behind — not the vanquished, but those who die where they stand arrayed in combat for freedom. And the great paradox must be added, that they die victorious ; for the prizes of war fare to the patriot are freedom and his patriotism, and both these belong to the dead. Nor can those be said to have been vanquished who did not tremble in spirit for fear of what was to come. Those then who die nobly in battle — no one rightly calls them conquered ; since fleeing from slavery, they choose a glorious death. The patriotism of these men has been con spicuous afar ; alone of all in Greece, they comprised freedom in their own persons. For they alone surrendered life, and Grecian existence sank into slavery ; with their bodies was buried the liberty of all remaining Greeks. Thus also they made it clear to the world that they were not warring for private ends, but bearing the foremost brunt of the contest for the common freedom. Therefore, gentlemen, I am not ashamed to say that their spirits are the crown of our fatherland.
And so it was anything but absurd that our fathers — as you know, fellow-citizens — alone of the Greeks made a prac tice of honoring patriots ; for among others you will find the statues of athletes placed in the forum, but among you those of able generals and the slayers of a tyrant. True, it is not easy to find many such in all Greece together ; while the win ners in the laureled games of athletics can easily be dis tinguished in place after place. Since, therefore, you assign the greater honors to your benefactors, it is but just that those who bring their fatherland to scorn and betray it should be punished with the utmost severity.
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And take notice, gentlemen, that it does not lie with you to acquit this man Leocrates and do justice. For this crime has been passed upon and sentenced ; the senate in the Areop agus (let no one howl at me :
chief salvation of the city) put to death, when it caught them, those who fled their country and left it to the enemy. And further, gentlemen, do not think that those who passed sen tence on the sacrilegious blood -guiltiness of others acted un justly toward any of the citizens. But you condemned a certain Autolycus, though he had stood fast through peril, because he was charged with having secretly conveyed away his wife and children ; and you punished him. Now, if you punished the man accused of having secretly conveyed away those useless in the war, what ought this man to suffer, who would not repay his country for having reared him ? The people, moreover, holding the act most base, have rendered liable to the pains of treason those who fly from danger to their country, judging it worthy the severest punishment. Then the things decided in the fairest of councils, decreed by you who are allotted to give judgment, and finally agreed by the people, to be worthy the heaviest punishment, ought you yourselves now to pronounce the contrary ? You will be thought by all the world to have lost your wits, and will find very few to endanger themselves for you again.
JSschines.
Against Ctesiphon (" On the Crown ").
(Translated for this work. )
[Ctesiphon, an adherent of Demosthenes, had proposed the conferring of a golden crown upon him for useful service to the state. JEschineS indicted Ctesiphon under the irapavd/wov ypa<f>q,a law making the pro posal of an illegal measure a penal offense. The illegality of the measure was not successfully contested ; but the real question at issue being Demosthenes' public career, decision was given in Ctesiphon's favor notwithstanding. ]
I wish now to speak briefly of the calumnies against myself. I learn that Demosthenes will say the city has been much bene fited by him, but deeply injured by me ; and that he will load Philip and Alexander and their delinquencies on me. For it
I reply that it was then the
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seems he is so cunning an artist in words, that not satisfied with defaming all my administrative acts for you, and all the public speaking I have done, he traduces my retired life and criminates my silence, that no item may be left undenounced as treasonable ; even my sport with the youths in the gymnasia he reviles. At the very outset of his speech he makes this indictment itself a crime, alleging that I have brought the suit not from public spirit, but to exhibit my hatred of him to Alexander by means of it. And forsooth he is going to ask why I condemn his administration as a whole, when I did not oppose or impeach the acts of it singly ; but after a long inter val in which I have not attended closely to public business, have now come forward with this prosecution.
I have not emulated the pursuits of Demosthenes, however, am not ashamed of my own, and do not wish any of the words I have addressed to you unsaid ; and if I had harangued you like him, life would be unwelcome to me. My silence, Demos thenes, has become my wont from moderation of life ; for a little suffices me, and I do not covet more through dishonor — so that I both keep silence and speak when I choose, not when I am forced by extravagant tastes. But you, I judge, keep still on clutching a bribe and bellow when it is spent. And you speak not when you think fit, nor what you wish, but as the bribe-givers order you ; and you are not ashamed at setting up a mare's-nest which is straightway proved false and you a liar. For the suit on this decree, which you say was instituted not for the the city's sake, but that I might make a show to please Alexander, was in fact instituted in Philip's lifetime, before Alexander's accession ; when you had not yet seen the vision about Pausanias, nor held your many nocturnal collo quies with Athene and Hera. How then could I have been showing off before Alexander, unless I and Demosthenes had both seen the vision ?
You reproach me with not coming before the people contin uously, but at intervals ; and you think it a secret that this rule of conduct is borrowed not from a democracy but from another form of government. For in oligarchies, not the desirous but the powerful man prosecutes ; in democracies, the desirous and whenever he sees fit. And occasional speaking is a mark of the man who serves the public opportunely and to be useful ; but skipping no day, of the professional who works for wages. As to your having never been prosecuted by me,
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nor brought to justice for your misdeeds, —when you take refuge in such talk, either you must suppose the audience have no memory, or else you deceive your very self with words. For your impious conduct toward the Amphissaeans, your bribe taking in the matter of Euboea — as the time is long past since you were publicly convicted by me, you probably think the people have forgotten. But the plundering job of the tri remes and trierarchs, what lapse of time can bury? When you had carried a bill for three hundred of them, and induced the Athenians to appoint you superintendent of marine, you were convicted by me of having robbed the trierarchs of sixty- five fast-sailing vessels — a greater naval armament than when the Athenians won at Naxos the naval battle with the Lacedae monians and Pollis. Yet by your countercharges you so diverted punishment from yourself that the risk of it fell not on you, the culprit, but on the prosecutors ; while you heaped libels on Alexander and Philip and denounced certain persons who obstructed the interests of the city — you having on every occasion damaged the present and held out promises for the future. Did you not at last, when about to be indicted by me, effect the arrest of Anaxinus the Oreitan, who was market ing goods for Olympias, and having racked him twice, with your own hand write the decree consigning him to death ? And it was by him you were given lodging at Oreion, and at his table you ate and drank and poured libations, and clasped his right hand and constituted that man your host. And you put him to death ; and on being convicted of these things by me before all Athens, and styled the murderer of your host, you never denied the sacrilege, but made a reply which got you hooted by the people and the foreign bystanders in the assem bly — you said you valued the city's salt more highly than the foreigner's table.
I say nothing of the forged letters, the arrest of spies, the tortures for uncommitted crimes, to make me out as wishing with certain other citizens to innovate. He means to ask me next, so I learn, what kind of a physician he would be who should give no advice to a patient while sick, but after his death should attend the obsequies, and detail to the household the regimen which if practiced would have kept him in health. But you do not ask yourself in turn what kind of a public leader he would be who was able to flatter the people, but sold every chance when the city might be saved, and while barring
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out those of honest purpose from counsel by his slanders, run ning away from perils, and entangling the city in desperate evils, claimed the honor of a crown for civic virtue, though having done naught of good but occasioned all our misfortunes ; and then demanded of those driven from the government by false accusations, at junctures when the state might have been preserved, why they did not prevent his going wrong ? and lastly, concealed the fact that when the battle took place we had no leisure for punishing him, but were negotiating for the safety of the city. But since you are not content that justice was not meted out to you, and claim honors too, rendering the city ridiculous to all the Greeks, I have resisted you and brought in this indictment.
But I solemnly swear that of all which I learn Demosthenes intends to allege, I am most indignant at what I am going to mention. It seems he compares my nature to the Sirens' ; for their listeners are never called to them, it is said, except to be destroyed, — wherefore the Sirens' music is not in good repute, — and forsooth my practice in speaking and my native talent exist for the ruin of the hearers. Now for my part, I think this charge is in every way one it becomes no man to bring against me, for it is shameful in accusers to have no proofs to exhibit ; but if indispensable to be plead, it lies not in Demos thenes' mouth, but in that of some capable general who has done good service to the city, unskilled in speaking and there fore envying his opponents' ability, and who recognizes that he cannot explain what he has done, but sees the accuser able to present to the judges acts he never committed, as things he ordered. But when a man composed of words, and those at once acrimonious and elaborated, takes refuge in artlessness and bald fact, who can put up with it? —a man from whom if you take the tongue, as with a flute, nothing is left.
I wonder, fellow-citizens, and I ask you, on what ground you could vote against this indictment. That the decree is not illegal? no motion was ever more unlawful. Or that the author of the decree does not deserve to be brought to justice ? none can fairly be called to account by you for their conduct, if you discharge him. Is it not deplorable, when formerly the stage was filled with golden crowns with which our people were crowned by the Greeks, — this season being assigned for for eigners' crowns, — that now through Demosthenes' administra tion you are all discrowned and disheralded, while he is to
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be heralded? Why, if any of the tragic poets coming on this stage after these proceedings should represent Thersites crowned by the Greeks, none of you would endure it, because Homer says he was a coward and false informer ; but when ever you shall have crowned this man, do you not think you will be hissed by the judgment of all the Greeks ? . . .
I would gladly discuss this decree with the author before you, fellow-citizens, as to what great service Demosthenes is worthy to be crowned for.
If you take up the second item of the decree, in which you have ventured to write him down a good citizen who has stead ily spoken and acted for the highest good of the people of Athens, then strip the decree of humbug and boastfulness so that it may stick to facts, and prove what you allege. I will leave out the bribe-taking in the Amphissaean and Euboean cases : but when you impute the merit of the Theban alliance to Demosthenes, you impose on the ignorant and insult those who know and understand ; for by suppressing the nature of the crisis, and the reputation of those by whom the alliance was effected, you think to conceal from us the credit due the city and transfer it to Demosthenes. How great a fraud this is, I will try to make plain by a notable instance. The king of the Persians once, not long before the descent of Alexander upon Asia, sent to this people a letter both arrogant and bar barian ; in which, after handling many other topics very boor ishly, he had written thus at the close : "
gold," he said; " do not ask me, for you will not get it. " Yet this same man, hemmed in by imminent dangers himself, sent voluntarily three hundred talents to the people — which they wisely declined to accept. What brought the gold was
the juncture and fear and the needs of allies ; and the very same things brought about the alliance of the Thebans.
But while you bore us by harping on the name of the The bans and their luckless alliance, you are silent on your grab bing the seventy talents you stole of the royal gold.
Was it not for lack of money, for the sake of five talents, that the
If you say, as embodied in the opening of the decree, that he has dug ditches around the walls well, I wonder at you, for having been their cause is a heavier count than having executed them well ; and it is not for palisading the wall circuit or oblit erating the public graves that an administrator should rightly merit honors, but for generating some new good to the city.
I will give you no
172
-ESCHINES.
enemy would not restore the Thebans their citadel? for lack of nine talents of silver, that when all the Arcadians were drawn out and the leaders ready to come to our aid, the ex. pedition did not take place ? And you roll in wealth and celebrate games for your own pleasures! And to crown all, gentlemen, the royal gold is with him, the perils with you.
The ill-breeding of these men is also worth observing. If Ctesiphon should dare call on Demosthenes to address you, and he should rise and laud himself, listening to him would be a heavier burden than his acts. For even when really superior men, of whom many noble actions are known to us, recite their own praises, we are impatient; but if one who is the disgrace of the city were to eulogize himself, who that heard him could endure it ?
But if you are wise now, Ctesiphon, you will abstain from this impudent procedure, and make your defense in person ; for you cannot set up the slightest pretense of being unequal to public speaking. It would become you oddly enough, when you have recently borne up under being appointed ambassador to Cleopatra the daughter of Philip, for condolence with her on the death of Alexander king of the Molossians, to pretend now that you cannot make a speech. When you are able to con sole a mourning woman, a foreigner at that, can you not defend a decree you have drawn up for pay ? or is this man you have ordered crowned, one who would be unknown to those he has benefited unless some one added his voice to yours ? Ask the judges if they know Chabrias and Iphicrates and Timotheus, and question them why they gave those men public honors and erected their statues. All will reply to you with one voice — to Chabrias for the naval battle at Naxos, to Iphicrates be cause he annihilated the Lacedaemonian battalion, to Timotheus for circumnavigating Corcyra ; and to others because one by one they have performed many brilliant feats in war. But should any one ask, Why to Demosthenes ? — As bribe-taker, as coward, as deserter from the ranks. And which will you be doing — honoring him, or dishonoring yourselves and those who fell for you in battle ? Imagine you see them protesting fiercely if he shall be crowned. For it would be marvelous indeed, fellow-citizens, if wood and stone and iron, things mute and senseless, we banish when they fall on any one and kill him ; and if whoever slays himself, the hand that did the deed we bury apart from the body: yet Demosthenes, fellow
DEMOSTHENES. 173
citizens, who indeed ordered this expedition, but betrayed the soldiers — this man you should honor. By this not only the dead are insulted, but the living disheartened, on seeing that death is constituted the reward of patriotism, and their mem ory is to perish.
Demosthenes. On the Crown.
I hold the fortune of our commonwealth to be good, and so I find the oracles of Dodonaean Jupiter and Pythian Apollo declaring to us. The fortune of all mankind, which now pre vails, I consider cruel and dreadful : for what Greek, what barbarian, has not in these times experienced a multitude of evils? That Athens chose the noblest policy, that she fares better than those very Greeks who thought, if they abandoned us, they should abide in prosperity, I reckon as part of her good fortune : if she suffered reverses, if all happened not to us as we desired, I conceive she has had that share of the general fortune which fell to our lot. As to my fortune (per sonally speaking) or that of any individual among us, it should, as I conceive, be judged of in connection with personal matters. Such is my opinion upon the subject of fortune, a right and just one, as it appears to me, and I think you will agree with it. ^Eschines says that my individual fortune is paramount to that of the commonwealth, the small and mean to the good and great. How can this possibly be?
However, if you are determined, ^Eschines, to scrutinize my fortune, compare it with your own, and, if you find my fortune better than yours, cease to revile it. Look then from the very beginning. And I pray and entreat that I may not be con demned for bad taste. I don't think any person wise who insults poverty, or who prides himself on having been bred in affluence : but by the slander and malice of this cruel man I am forced into such a discussion ; which I will conduct with all the moderation which circumstances allow.
I had the advantage, ^Eschines, in my boyhood of going to proper schools, and having such allowance as a boy should have who is to do nothing mean from indigence. Arrived at man's estate, I lived suitably to my breeding ; was choir master, ship commander, ratepayer ; backward in no acts of liberality pub lic or private, but making myself useful to the commonwealth
174 DEMOSTHENES.
and to my friends. When I entered upon state affairs, I chose such a line of politics, that both by my country and many people of Greece I have been crowned many times, and not even you my enemies venture to say that the line I chose was not honorable. Such then has been the fortune of my life : I could enlarge upon it, but I forbear, lest what I pride myself in should give offense.
But you, the man of dignity, who spit upon others, look what sort of fortune is yours compared with mine. As a boy you were reared in abject poverty, waiting with your father on the school, grinding the ink, sponging the benches, sweep ing the room, doing the duty of a menial rather than a free man's son. After you were grown up, you attended your mother's initiations, reading her books and helping in all the ceremonies : at night wrapping the novitiates in fawn skin, swilling, purifying, and scouring them with clay and bran, raising them after the lustration, and bidding them say, " Bad I have scaped, and better I have found ; " priding yourself that no one ever howled so lustily — and I believe him ! for don't suppose that he who speaks so loud is not a splendid howler ! In the daytime you led your noble orgiasts, crowned with fennel and poplar, through the highways, squeezing the big- cheeked serpents, and lifting them over your head, and shout ing Evoe Saboe, and capering to the words Hyes Attes, Attes Hyes, saluted by the beldames as Leader, Conductor, Chest Bearer, Fan Bearer, and the like, getting as your reward tarts and biscuits and rolls ; for which any man might well bless himself and his fortune ! —
When you were enrolled among your fellow-townsmen
what means I stop not to inquire — when you were enrolled however, you immediately selected the most honorable of em ployments, that of clerk and assistant to our petty magistrates. From this you were removed after a while, having done your self all that you charge others with ; and then, sure enough, you disgraced not your antecedents by your subsequent life, but hiring yourself to those ranting players, as they were called, Simylus and Socrates, you acted third parts, collecting figs and grapes and olives like a fruiterer from other men's farms, and getting more from them than from the playing, in which the lives of your whole company were at stake ; for there was an implacable and incessant war between them and the audience, from whom you received so many wounds, that
by
Demosthenes.
From the Statue in the Louvre.
DEMOSTHENES. 175
But passing over what may be imputed to poverty, I will come to the direct charges against your character. You es poused such a line of politics (when at last you thought of taking to them), that, if your country prospered, you lived the life of a hare, fearing and trembling and ever expecting to be scourged for the crimes of which your conscience accused you, though all have seen how bold you were during the misfor tunes of the rest. A man who took courage at the death of a thousand citizens — what does he deserve at the hands of the living? A great deal more that I could say about him I shall omit, for it is not all I can tell of his turpitude and infamy which I ought to let slip from my tongue, but only what is not disgraceful to myself to mention.
Contrast now the circumstances of your life and mine, gently and with temper, jEschines ; and then ask these people whose fortune they would each of them prefer. You taught read ing, I went to school : you performed initiations, I received them : you danced in the chorus, I furnished it : you were assembly clerk, I was a speaker : you acted third parts, I heard you : you broke down, and I hissed : you have worked as a statesman for the enemy, I for my country. I pass by the rest ; but this very day I am on my probation for a crown, and am acknowledged to be innocent of all offense ; while you are already judged to be a pettifogger, and the question is, whether you shall continue that trade, or at once be silenced by not getting a fifth part of the votes. A happy fortune, do you see, you have enjoyed, that you should denounce mine as miser able !
Come now, let me read the evidence to the jury of public services which I have performed. And by way of comparison do you recite me the verses which you murdered : —
no wonder you taunt as cowards, people inexperienced in such encounters.
And
From Hades and the dusky realms I come.
111 news, believe me, I am loath to bear.
Ill betide thee, say I, and may the Gods, or at least the Athe nians, confound thee for a vile citizen and a vile third-rate actor !
Read the evidence.
[Evidence. ]
176 DEMOSTHENES.
Such has been my character in political matters. In private, if you do not all know that I have been liberal and humane and charitable to the distressed, I am silent, I will say not a word, I will offer no evidence on the subject, either of persons whom I ransomed from the enemy, or of persons whose daugh ters I helped to portion, or anything of the kind. For this is my maxim. I hold that the party receiving an obligation should ever remember it, the party conferring should forget it immediately, if the one is to act with honesty, the other with out meanness. To remind and speak of your own bounties is next door to reproaching. I will not act so; nothing shall induce me. Whatever my reputation is in these respects, I am content with it.
I will have done then with private topics, but say another word or two upon public. If you can mention, jfEschines, a single man under the sun, whether Greek or barbarian, who has not suffered by Philip's power formerly and Alexander's now, well and good; I concede to you that my fortune, or misfortune (if you please), has been the cause of everything. But if many that never saw me or heard my voice have been grievously afflicted, not individuals only, but whole cities and nations, how much juster and fairer is it to consider that to the common fortune apparently of all men, to a tide of events overwhelming and lamentable, these disasters are to be attributed. You, disregarding all this, accuse me whose ministry has been among my countrymen, knowing all the while that a part (if not the whole) of your calumny falls upon the people, and yourself in particular. For if I assumed the sole and absolute direction of our counsels, it was open to you the other speakers to accuse me : but if you were con stantly present in all the assemblies, if the state invited public discussion of what was expedient, and if these measures were then believed by all to be the best, and especially by you (for certainly from no good will did you leave me in possession of hopes and admiration and honors, all of which attended on my policy, but doubtless because you were compelled by the truth and had nothing better to advise), is it not iniquitous and monstrous to complain now of measures, than which you could suggest none better at the time ?
Among all other people I find these principles in a manner defined and settled — Does a man willfully offend ? He is the object of wrath and punishment. Has a man erred uninten
DEMOSTHENES. 177
tionally? There is pardon instead of punishment for him. Has a man devoted himself to what seemed for the general good, and without any fault or misconduct been in common with all disappointed of success? Such a one deserves not obloquy or reproach, but sympathy. These principles will not be found in our statutes only : Nature herself has defined them by her unwritten laws and the feelings of humanity. ^Eschines however has so far surpassed all men in brutality and malignity; that even things which he cited himself as mis fortunes he imputes to me as crimes.
And besides — as if he himself had spoken everything with candor and good will — he told you to watch me, and mind that I did not cajole and deceive you, calling me a great orator, a juggler, a sophist, and the like : as though, if a man says of another what applies to himself, it must be true, and the hearers are not to inquire who the person is that makes the charge. Certain am I, that you are all acquainted with my opponent's character, and believe these charges to be more applicable to him than to me. And of this I am sure, that my oratory — let it be so : though indeed I find that the speaker's power depends for the most part on the hearers ; for according to your recep tion and favor it is, that the wisdom of a speaker is esteemed — if I however possess any ability of this sort, you will find it has been exhibited always in public business on your behalf, never against you or on personal matters ; whereas that of -5£schines has been displayed not only in speaking for the enemy, but against all persons who ever offended or quarreled with him. It is not for justice or the good of the commonwealth that he employs it. A citizen of worth and honor should not call upon judges impaneled in the public service to gratify his anger or hatred or anything of that kind ; nor should he come before you upon such grounds. The best thing is not to have these feelings ; but, if it cannot be helped, they should be mitigated and restrained.
On what occasions ought an orator and statesman to be vehement ? Where any of the commonwealth's main interests are in jeopardy, and he is opposed to the adversaries of the people. Those are the occasions for a generous and brave citizen. But for a person who never sought to punish me for any offense either public or private, on the state's behalf or on his own, to have got up an accusation because I am crowned
and honored, and to have expended such a multitude of words VOL. IV. —12
178 DEMOSTHENES.
— this is a proof of personal enmity and spite and meanness, not of anything good. And then his leaving the controversy with me, and attacking the defendant, comprises everything that is base.
I should conclude, ^Eschines, that you undertook this cause to exhibit your eloquence and strength of lungs, not to obtain satisfaction for any wrong. But it is not the language of an orator, iEschines, that has any value, nor yet the tone of his voice, but his adopting the same views with the people, and his hating and loving the same persons that his country does. He that is thus minded will say everything with loyal inten tion : he that courts persons from whom the commonwealth apprehends danger to herself rides not on the same anchorage with the people, and therefore has not the same expectation of safety. But — do you see? — I have: for my objects are
separate or distinct. Is that so with you ? How can it be when immediately after the battle you went as ambassador to Philip, who was at that period the author of your country's calamities, notwithstanding that you had before persisted in refusing that office, as all men know ?
And who is it that deceives the state ? Surely the man who speaks not what he thinks. On whom does the crier pro nounce a curse ? Surely on such a man. What greater crime can an orator be charged with, than that his opinions and his language are not the same ? Such is found to be your char acter. And yet you open your mouth, and dare to look these men in the face ! Do you think they don't know you ? or are sunk all in such slumber and oblivion, as not to remem ber the speeches which you delivered in the assembly, cursing and swearing that you had nothing to do with Philip, and that I brought that charge against you out of personal enmity without foundation ? No sooner came the news of the battle, than you forgot all that ; you acknowledged and avowed that between Philip and yourself there subsisted a relation of hos pitality and friendship — new names these for your contract of hire. For upon what plea of equality or justice could . (Eschines, son of Glaucothea the timbrel player, be the friend or acquaintance of Philip ? I cannot see. No ! You were hired to ruin the interests of your countrymen : and yet, though you have been caught yourself in open treason, and informed against yourself after the fact, you revile and re
I have no interest the same with those of my countrymen ; —
DEMOSTHENES. 179
proach me for things which you will find any man is charge able with sooner than I.
Many great and glorious enterprises has the commonwealth, JEschines, undertaken and succeeded in through me ; and she did not forget them. Here is the proof : On the election of a person to speak the funeral oration immediately after the event, you were proposed, but the people would not have you, notwithstanding your fine voice, nor Demades, though he had just made the peace, nor Hegemon, nor any other of your party — but me. And when you and Pythocles came forward in a brutal and shameful manner (O merciful heaven ! ), and urged the same accusations against me which you now do, and abused me, they elected me all the more. The reason — you are not ignorant of it — yet I will tell you. The Athe nians knew as well the loyalty and zeal with which I conducted their affairs, as the dishonesty of you and your party ; for what you denied upon oath in our prosperity, you confessed in the misfortunes of the republic. They considered, there fore, that men who got security for their politics by the public disasters had been their enemies long before, and were then avowedly such. They thought it right also, that the person who was to speak in honor of the fallen and celebrate their valor should not have sat under the same roof or at the same table with their antagonists ; that he should not revel there and sing a paean over the calamities of Greece in company with their murderers, and then come here and receive dis tinction ; that he should not with his voice act the mourner of their fate, but that he should lament over them with his heart. This they perceived in themselves and in me, but not in any of you : therefore they elected me, and not you. Nor, while the people felt thus, did the fathers and brothers of the deceased, who were chosen by the people to perform their obsequies, feel differently. For having to order the funeral banquet (according to custom) at the house of the nearest relative to the deceased, they ordered it at mine. And with reason : because, though each to his own was nearer of kin than I was, none was so near to them all collectively. He that had the deepest interest in their safety and success had upon their mournful disaster the largest share of sorrow for them all.
Read him this epitaph, which the state chose to inscribe on their monument, that you may see even by this, -5Sschines, what a heartless and malignant wretch you are. Read.
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DEMOSTHENES.
The Epitaph.
These are the patriot brave, who side by side
Stood to their arms, and dashed the foeman's pride : Firm in their valor, prodigal of life,
Hades they chose the arbiter of strife ;
That Greeks might ne'er to haughty victors bow,
Nor thraldom's yoke, nor dire oppression know ; They fought, they bled, and on their country's breast (Such was the doom of heaven) these warriors rest. Gods never lack success, nor strive in vain,
But man must suffer what the fates ordain.
Do you hear, jEschines, in this very inscription, that " Gods never lack success, nor strive in vain ? " Not to the states man does it ascribe the power of giving victory in battle, but to the Gods. Wherefore then, execrable man, do you reproach me with these things? Wherefore utter such language? I pray that it may fall upon the heads of you and yours.
Many other accusations and falsehoods he urged against me, O Athenians, but one thing surprised me more than all, that, when he mentioned the late misfortunes of the country, he felt not as became a well-disposed and upright citizen, he shed no tear, experienced no such emotion : with a loud voice exulting, and straining his throat, he imagined apparently that he was accusing me, while he was giving proof against himself, that our distresses touched him not in the same manner as the rest. A person who pretends, as he did, to care for the laws and constitution, ought at least to have this about him, that he grieves and rejoices for the same cause as the people, and not by his politics to be enlisted in the ranks of the enemy, as jEschines has plainly done, saying that I am the cause of all, and that the commonwealth has fallen into troubles through me, when it was not owing to my views or principles that you began to assist the Greeks ; for, if you conceded this to me, that my influence caused you to resist the subjugation of Greece, it would be a higher honor than any that you have bestowed upon others. I myself would not make such an assertion — it would be doing you injustice — nor would you allow it, I am sure ; and JEschines, if he acted honestly, would never, out of enmity to me, have disparaged and defamed the greatest of your glories.
But why do I censure him for this, when with calumny far
DEMOSTHENES. 181
more shocking has he assailed me ? He that charges me with Philippizing — O heaven and earth ! — what would he not say ? By Hercules and the Gods! if one had honestly to inquire, discarding all expression of spite and falsehood, who the per sons really are, on whom the blame of what has happened may by common consent fairly and justly be thrown, it would be found, they are persons in the various states like JEschines, not like me — persons who, while Philip's power was feeble and exceedingly small, and we were constantly warning and exhort ing and giving salutary counsel, sacrificed the general interests for the sake of selfish lucre, deceiving and corrupting their respective countrymen, until they made them slaves — Daochus, Cineas, Thrasylaus, the Thessalians ; Cercidas, Hieronymus, Eucampidas, the Arcadians ; Myrtis, Teledamus, Mnaseas, the
Euxitheus, Cleotimus, Aristaechmus, the Eleans; Neon and Thrasylochus, sons of the accursed Philiades, the Messenians ; Aristratus, Epichares, the Sicyonians ; Dinarchus, Demaratus, the Corinthians ; Ptoeodorus, Helixus, Perilaus, the Megarians ; Timolaus, Theogiton, Anemoetas, the Thebans ; Hipparchus, Clitarchus, Sosistratus, the Euboeans. The day will not last me to recount the names of the traitors. All these, O Athenians, are men of the same politics in their own countries as this party among you, — profligates, and parasites, and miscreants, who have each of them crippled their father lands ; toasted away their liberty, first to Philip and last to Alexander ; who measure happiness by their belly and all that is base, while freedom and independence, which the Greeks of olden time regarded as the test and standard of well-being, they have annihilated. —
Of this base and infamous conspiracy and profligacy rather, O Athenians, if I am to speak in earnest, of this betrayal of Grecian liberty — Athens is by all mankind acquitted, owing to my counsels ; and I am acquitted by you. Then do you ask me, JEschines, for what merit I claim to be honored ? I will tell you. Because, while all the statesmen in Greece, begin ning with yourself, have been corrupted formerly by Philip and now by Alexander, me neither opportunity, nor fair speeches, nor large promises, nor hope, nor fear, nor anything else could tempt or induce to betray aught that I considered just and beneficial to my country. Whatever I have advised my fellow- citizens, I have never advised like you men, leaning as in a balance to the side of profit : all my proceedings have been
Argives;
or
182 DEMOSTHENES.
those of a soul upright, honest, and incorrupt : intrusted with affairs of greater magnitude than any of my contemporaries, I have administered them all honestly and faithfully. Therefore do I claim to be honored.
As to this fortification, for which you ridiculed me, of the wall and fosse, I regard them as deserving of thanks and praise, and so they are ; but I place them nowhere near my acts of administration. Not with stones nor with bricks did I fortify Athens : nor is this the ministry on which I most pride myself. Would you view my fortifications aright, you will find arms, and states, and posts, and harbors, and galleys, and horses, and men for their defense. These are the bulwarks with which I protected Attica, as far as was possible by human wisdom ; with these I fortified our territory, not the circle of Piraeus or
I was not beaten by Philip in estimates or preparations ; far from it ; but the generals and forces of the allies were overcome by his fortune. Where are the proofs
the city. Nay, more :
of this ? They are plain and evident. Consider. —
What was the course becoming a loyal citizen a states
man serving his country with all possible forethought and zeal and fidelity? Should he not have covered Attica on the sea board with Euboea, on the midland frontier with Boeotia, on the Peloponnesian with the people of that confine ? Should he not have provided for the conveyance of corn along a friendly coast all the way to Piraeus? preserved certain places that belonged to us by sending off succors, and by advising and moving accordingly, — Proconnesus, Chersonesus, Tenedos ? brought others into alliance and confederacy with us, — By zantium, Abydus, Euboea? — cut off the principal resources of the enemy, and supplied what the commonwealth was deficient in ? All this has been accomplished by my decrees and meas ures ; and whoever will examine them without prejudice, men of Athens, will find they were rightly planned and faithfully executed ; that none of the proper seasons were lost or missed or thrown away by me, nothing which depended on one man's ability and prudence was neglected. But if the power of some deity or of fortune, or the worthlessness of commanders, or the wickedness of you that betrayed your countries, or all these things together, injured and eventually ruined our cause, of what is Demosthenes guilty? Had there in each of the Greek cities been one such man as I was in my station among you ; or rather, had Thessaly possessed one single man, and
DEMOSTHENES. 183
Arcadia one, of the same sentiments as myself, none of the Greeks either beyond or within Thermopylae would have suf fered their present calamities ; all would have been free and independent, living prosperously in their own countries with perfect safety and security, thankful to you and the rest of the Athenians for such manifold blessings through me.
To show you that I greatly understate my services for fear of giving offense, here — read me this — the list of auxiliaries procured by my decrees.
[The list of auxiliaries. ]
These and the like measures, JEschines, are what become an honorable citizen (by their success — O earth and heaven ! — we should have been the greatest of people incontestably, and deserved to be so : even under their failure the result is glory, and no one blames Athens or her policy : all condemn fortune that so ordered things) : but never will he desert the interests of the commonwealth, nor hire himself to her adver saries, and study the enemy's advantage instead of his coun try's; nor on a man who has courage to advise and propose measures worthy of the state, and resolution to persevere in them, will he cast an evil eye, and, if any one privately offends him, remember and treasure it up; no, nor keep himself in a criminal and treacherous retirement, as you so often do. There is indeed a retirement just and beneficial to the state, such as you, the bulk of my countrymen, innocently enjoy : that however is not the retirement of JEschines ; far from it. Withdrawing himself from public life when he pleases (and that is often), he watches for the moment when you are tired of a constant speaker, or when some reverse of fortune has befallen you, or anything untoward has happened (and many are the casualties of human life) : at such a crisis he springs up an orator, rising from his retreat like a wind ; in full voice, with words and phrases collected, he rolls them out audibly and breathlessly, to no advantage or good purpose whatsoever, but to the detriment of some or other of his fellow-citizens and to the general disgrace.
Yet from this labor and diligence, JEschines, if it proceeded from an honest heart, solicitous for your country's welfare, the fruits should have been rich and noble and profitable to all — alliances of states, supplies of money, conveniences of com merce, enactment of useful laws, opposition to our declared
184 DEMOSTHENES.
enemies. All such things were looked for in former times; and many opportunities did the past afford for a good man and
true to show himself ; during which time you are nowhere to be found, neither first, second, third, fourth, fifth, nor sixth — not in any rank at all — certainly on no service by which your country was exalted. For what alliance has come to the state by your procurement? What succors, what acquisition of good will or credit? What embassy or agency is there of yours, by which the reputation of the country has been in creased? What concern domestic, Hellenic, or foreign, of which you have had the management, has improved under it ? What galleys ? what ammunition ? what arsenals ? what repair of walls?