[2.1] I beg you, fellow citizens, to hear me with willing and friendly mind,
remembering how great is my peril, and how many the charges against which I have to defend
myself; remembering also the arts and devices of my accuser, and the cruelty of the man
who, speaking to men who are under oath to give equal hearing to both parties, had the
effrontery to urge you not to listen to the voice of the defendant. [2.2] and it was not
anger that made him say it; for no man who is lying is angry with the victim of his
calumny, nor do men who are speaking the truth try to prevent the defendant from obtaining
a hearing; for the prosecution does not find justification in the minds of the hearers
until the defendant has had opportunity to plead for himself and has proved unable to
refute the charges that have been preferred.
[2.3] But Demosthenes, I think, is not fond of fair argument, nor is that the sort of
preparation he has made. No, it is your anger that he is determined to call forth. And he
has accused me of receiving bribes--he who would be the last man to make such suspicion
credible! For the man who seeks to arouse the anger of his hearers over bribery must
himself refrain from such conduct.
[2.4] But, fellow citizens, as I have listened to Demosthenes' accusation, the effect
upon my own mind has been this: never have I been so apprehensive as on this day, nor ever
more angry than now, nor so exceedingly rejoiced. I was frightened, and am still
disturbed, lest some of you form a mistaken judgment of me, beguiled by those antitheses
of his, conceived in deliberate malice. And I was indignant--fairly beside myself at the
charge, when he accused me of insolence and drunken violence towards a free woman of
Olynthus.[1] But I was rejoiced when, as he was dwelling on this charge, you refused to
listen to him. This I consider to be the reward that you bestow upon me for a chaste and
temperate life.
*1. Demosthenes in his speech (Dem. On the False Embassy .196 ff.) had told in
detail the story of the abuse of a well-born Olynthian captive by Aeschines and others at
a banquet in Macedonia.
[2.5] To you I do, indeed, give praise and high esteem for putting your faith in the
life of those who are on trial, rather than in the accusations of their enemies; however,
I would not myself shrink from defending myself against this charge. For if there is any
man among those who are standing outside the bar--and almost the whole city is in the
court--or if there is any man of you, the jurors, who is convinced that I have ever
perpetrated such an act, not to say towards a free person, but towards any creature, I
hold my life as no longer worth the living. And if as my defence proceeds I fail to prove
that the accusation is false, and that the man who dared to utter it is an impious
slanderer, then, even though it be clear that I am innocent of all the other charges, I
declare myself worthy of death.
[2.6] But strange indeed did that other argument of his seem to me, and outrageously
unjust, when he asked you whether it was possible in one and the same city to sentence
Philocrates to death because he would not await trial and so condemned himself, and then
to acquit me. But I think that on this very ground I ought most certainly to be cleared
for if the man who condemns himself by not awaiting trial is guilty, certainly he who
denies the charge and submits his person to the laws and to his fellow citizens is not
guilty.
[2.7] Now, fellow citizens, as regards the rest of his accusations, if I pass over any
point and fail to mention it, I beg of you to question me and let me know what it is that
you wish to hear about, and to refrain from forming any judgment in advance, but to listen
with impartial goodwill. I do not know where I ought to begin, so inconsistent are his
accusations. See whether you think I am being treated in a reasonable way. [2.8] it is I
who am now on trial, and that too for my life; and yet the greater part of his accusation
has been directed against Philocrates and Phrynon and the other members of the embassy,
against Philip and the peace and the policies of Eubulus; it is only as one among all
these that he gives me a place. But when it is a question of solicitude for the interests
of the state, one solitary man stands out in all his speech--Demosthenes; all the rest are
traitors! For he has unceasingly insulted us and poured out his slanderous lies, not upon
me alone, but upon all the rest as well
[2.9] and after treating a man with such contempt, later, when it suits his whim, he
turns about, and as though he were accusing an Alcibiades or a Themistocles, the most
famous men among all the Greeks, he proceeds to charge that same man with having destroyed
the cities in Phocis, with having lost you the Thracian coast, with having expelled from
his kingdom Cersobleptes, a friend and ally of the city.
[2.10] and he undertook to liken me to Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, and vehemently
and with loud cries he called upon you to be on your guard against me; and he related the
dream of the priestess in Sicily.[1] Then, after all this exaggeration, he begrudged me
the credit even for what he had slanderously charged me with accomplishing, and ascribed
it all, not to my words, but to the arms of Philip.
*1. Neither the comparison with Dionysius nor the story of the dream was
retained by Demosthenes when he revised his speech for publication.
[2.11] When now a man has shown such trickery and effrontery, it is difficult even to
remember every single thing, and in the face of danger it is not easy to answer unexpected
slanders. But I will begin with those events which I think will enable me to make my
presentation most clear and intelligible to you, and fair; these events are the discussion
that took place concerning the peace, and the choice of the ambassadors. In this way I
shall best remember his charges and best be able to speak effectively, and you will be
best instructed.
[2.12] There is one thing, at any rate, which I think you all yourselves remember: how
the ambassadors from Euboea, after they had discussed with our assembly the question of
our making peace with them, told us that Philip also had asked them to report to you that
he wished to come to terms and be at peace with you. Not long after this, Phrynon of
Rhamnus was captured by privateers, during the Olympian truce, according to his own
complaint.[1] Now when he had been ransomed and had come home, he asked you to choose an
envoy to go to Philip in his behalf, in order that, if possible, he might recover his
ransom money. You were persuaded, and chose Ctesiphon as envoy for him.
*1. Shortly before the time for the Olympic festival in each quadrennium,
heralds were sent out by the Elean state to carry to all Greeks the invitation to the
festival and to proclaim a sacred truce between all warring Greek states. Phrynon claimed
that Macedonian pirates had violated this truce.
[2.13] When Ctesiphon returned from his mission, he first reported to you on the
matters for which he was sent, and then in addition he said that Philip declared that he
had gone to war with you against his own will, and that he wished, even now, to be rid of
the war. When Ctesiphon had said this and had also told of the marked kindness of his
reception, the people eagerly accepted his report and passed a vote of praise for
Ctesiphon. Not a voice was raised in opposition. Then it was, and not till then, that
Philocrates of Hagnus offered a motion, which was passed by unanimous vote of the people
that Philip be allowed to send to us a herald and ambassadors to treat for peace. For up
to this time even that had been prevented by certain men who made it their business to do
so, as the event itself proved.
[2.14] for they attacked the motion as unconstitutional,[1] subscribing the name of
Lycinus to the indictment, in which they proposed a penalty of one hundred talents. When
the case came to trial Philocrates was ill, and called as his advocate Demosthenes, not
me. And Demosthenes the Philip-hater came to the platform and used up the day in his plea
for the defence. Finally Philocrates acquitted, and the prosecutor failed to receive the
fifth part of the votes.[2] This is matter of common knowledge.
*1. On the indictment for proposing an unconstitutional measure, see Aeschines:
Against Ctesiphon, Introduction.
*2. A prosecutor who failed to receive one-fifth part of the votes of the jury
was subject to a fine of 1,00drachmas and disability to bring such a suit in the future.
[2.15] Now about the same time Olynthus was taken, and many of our citizens were
captured there, among them Iatrocles, brother of Ergochares, and Eueratus, son of
Strombichus. Their families naturally made supplication in their behalf, and begged you to
provide for them. Their spokesmen before the people were Philocrates and Demosthenes, not
Aeschines. So Aristodemus the actor is sent as envoy to Philip, as being an acquaintance
of his, and of a profession that naturally wins friends.
[2.16] But when Aristodemus returned from his mission, his report to the senate was
delayed by certain business of his, and meanwhile Iatrocles came back from Macedonia,
released by Philip without ransom. Then many people were angry with Aristodemus for having
failed to make his report, for they heard from Iatrocles the same story about Philip.[1]
*1. The same story that the Euboean ambassadors and Ctesiphon had brought, that
Philip was ready to discuss peace.
[2.17] Finally Democrates of Aphidna went before the senate and persuaded them to
summon Aristodemus. One of the senators was Demosthenes, my accuser! Aristodemus appeared
before them, reported Philip's great friendliness toward the city, and added this besides,
that Philip even wished to become an ally of our state. This he said not only before the
senate, but also at an assembly of the people. Here again Demosthenes spoke no word in
opposition, but even moved that a crown be conferred on Aristodemus.
[2.18] Next Philocrates moved that ten ambassadors be chosen to go to Philip and
discuss with him both the question of peace and the common interests of the Athenians and
Philip. At the election of the ten ambassadors I was nominated by Nausicles, but
Philocrates himself nominated Demosthenes--Demosthenes, the man who now accuses
Philocrates.
[2.19] and so eager was Demosthenes for the business, that in order to make it possible
for Aristodemus to be a member of our embassy without financial loss to himself, he moved
that we elect envoys to go to the cities in which Aristodemus was under contract to act,
and beg in his behalf the cancelling of his forfeitures. To prove the truth of this, take,
if you please, the decrees, and read the deposition of Aristodemus, and call the witnesses
before whom the deposition was made, in order that the jury may know who was the good
friend of Philocrates, and who it was that promised to persuade the people to bestow the
rewards on Aristodemus.
Decrees
Deposition
[2.20] The whole affair, therefore, from the beginning originated not with me, but with
Demosthenes and Philocrates. And on the embassy he was eager to belong to our mess--not
with my consent, but with that of my companions, Aglaocreon of Tenedos, whom you chose to
represent the allies, and Iatrocles. And he asserts that on the journey I urged him to
join me in guarding against the beast--meaning Philocrates. But the whole story was a
fabrication; for how could I have urged Demosthenes against Philocrates, when I knew that
he had been Philocrates' advocate in the suit against the legality of his motion, and that
he had been nominated to the embassy by Philocrates?
[2.21] Moreover, this was not the sort of conversation in which we were engaged, but
all the way we were forced to put up with Demosthenes' odious and insufferable ways. When
we were discussing what should be said, and when Cimon remarked that he was afraid Philip
would get the better of us in arguing his claims, Demosthenes promised fountains of
oratory, and said that he was going to make such a speech about our claims to Amphipolis
and the origin of the war that he would sew up Philip's mouth with an unsoaked rush,[1]
and he would persuade the Athenians to permit Leosthenes to return home,[2] and Philip to
restore Amphipolis to Athens.
*1. The job would be so easy that he would not have to stop to soak the rush
fiber and make it pliable. A proverbial expression.
*2. Leosthenes was an Athenian orator and general, who had been condemned to
death in 361 because of the failure of his campaign in the northern waters; he was now in
exile in Macedonia. The recovery of Amphipolis would mollify the anger of the Athenians
against him
[2.22] But not to describe at length the overweening self-confidence of this fellow, as
soon as we were come to Macedonia, we arranged among ourselves that at our audience with
Philip the eldest should speak first, and the rest in the order of age. Now it happened
that the youngest man of us was, according to his own assertion, Demosthenes. When we were
summoned--and pray now give especial attention to this, for here you shall see the
exceeding enviousness of the man, and his strange cowardice and meanness too, and such
plottings against men who were his own fellow ambassadors and his messmates as one would
hardly enter into even against his bitterest enemies. For you remember he says [1] it is
the salt of the city and the table of the state for which he has most regard--he, who is
no citizen born--for I will out with it!--nor akin to us.[2]
*1. See Dem. On the False Embassy 189 ff. Aeschines had protested that
Demosthenes, in attacking his fellow-ambassadors on their return from Macedonia, was
violating the common decencies of life, which demanded that men who had sat at table
together should treat one another as friends. Demosthenes replied that the table and the
salt, even, in the case of the prytanes and other high officials who ate together at a
common official table, gave no immunity to the wrongdoer; his fellow-officials were free
to bring him to punishment. If the public table of the prytanes did not protect the guilty
from attack by his fellow-officers, the table and the salt of the group of ambassadors
should be no protection to Aeschines against Demosthenes' attack.
*2. In Aeschin. Against Ctesiphon 171 f., Aeschines declares that
the maternal grandmother of Demosthenes was a Scythian.
[2.23] But we, who have shrines and family tombs in our native land, and such life and
intercourse with you as belong to free men, and lawful marriage, with its offspring and
connections, we while at Athens were worthy of your confidence, or you would never have
chosen us, but when we had come to Macedonia we all at once turned traitors! But the man
who had not one member of his body left unsold, posing as a second Aristeides "the
Just," is displeased, and spits on us, as takers of bribes.
[2.24] Hear now the pleas that we made in your behalf, and again those which stand to
the credit of Demosthenes, that great benefactor of the state, in order that I may answer
one after another and in full detail each one of his accusations. But I commend you
exceedingly, gentlemen of the jury, that in silence and with fairness you are listening to
us. If, therefore, I fail to refute any one of his accusations, I shall have myself, not
you, to blame.
[2.25] So when the older men had spoken on the object of our mission, our turn came.[1]
All that I said there and Philip's reply, I reported fully in your assembly in the
presence of all the citizens, but I will try to recall it to you now in a summary way.
*1. The turn of Aeschines and Demosthenes as the youngest of the ambassadors.
[2.26] In the first place, I described to him our traditional friendship and your
generous services to Amyntas, the father of Philip, recalling them all one after another,
and omitting nothing. Secondly, I reminded him of services of which he himself had been
both witness and recipient. For shortly after the death of Amyntas, and of Alexander, the
eldest of the brothers, while Perdiccas and Philip were still children, when their mother
Eurydice had been betrayed by those who professed to be their friends
[2.27] and when Pausanias was coming back to contend for the throne,[1] an exile then,
but favoured by opportunity and the support of many of the people, and bringing a Greek
force with him, and when he had already seized Anthemon, Therma, Strepsa, and certain
other places, at a time when the Macedonians were not united, but most of them favoured
Pausanias: at this crisis the Athenians elected Iphicrates as their general to go against
Amphipolis--for at that time the people of Amphipolis were holding their city themselves
and enjoying the products of the land.
*1. Amyntas, king of Macedonia, left three sons, Alexander, Perdiccas, and
Philip. Alexander succeeded his father, but after a short reign he was assassinated. His
mother Eurydice with her paramour Ptolemaeus took the throne. Her power was threatened by
Pausanias, a member of a rival princely house.
[2.28] When Iphicrates had come into this region--with a few ships at first, for the
purpose of examining into the situation rather than of laying siege to the city--
"Then," said I, "your mother Eurydice sent for him, and according to the
testimony of all who were present, she put your brother Perdiccas into the arms of
Iphicrates, and set you upon his knees--for you were a little boy--and said, `Amyntas, the
father of these little children, when he was alive, made you his son,[1] and enjoyed the
friendship of the city of Athens; we have a right therefore to consider you in your
private capacity a brother of these boys, and in your public capacity a friend to us.'
*1. Amyntas, hard pressed by his Illyrian and Thessalian neighbors, had at one
time been driven from his throne by a rival prince. After two years he was restored to
power by the help of Sparta and Athens. It is conjectured that this was the occasion of
his adoption of the Athenian Iphicrates, one of the most capable leaders of mercenary
troops.
[2.29] After this she at once began to make earnest entreaty in your behalf and in her
own, and for the maintenance of the throne--in a word for full protection. When Iphicrates
had heard all this, he drove Pausanias out of Macedonia and preserved the dynasty for
you." Next I spoke about Ptolemaeus, who had been made regent, telling what an
ungrateful and outrageous thing he had done: I explained how in the first place he
continually worked against our city in the interest of Amphipolis, and when we were in
controversy with the Thebans, made alliance with them; and then how Perdiccas, when he
came to the throne, fought for Amphipolis against our city.
[2.30] And I showed that, wronged as you were, you maintained your friendly attitude;
for I told how, when you had conquered Perdiccas in the war, under the generalship of
Callisthenes, you made a truce with him, ever expecting to receive some just return. And I
tried to remove the ill feeling that was connected with this affair by showing that it was
not the truce with Perdiccas that led the people to put Callisthenes to death, but other
causes. And again I did not hesitate to complain of Philip himself, blaming him for having
taken up in his turn the war against our state.
[2.31] As proof of all my statements, I offered the letters of the persons in question,
the decrees of the people, and Callisthenes' treaty of truce. Now the facts about our
original acquisition both of the district and of the place called Ennea Hodoi,[1] and the
story of the sons of Theseus, one of whom, Acamas, is said to have received this district
as the dowry of his wife--all this was fitting to the occasion then, and was given with
the utmost exactness, but now I suppose I must be brief; but those proofs which rested,
not on the ancient legends, but on occurrences of our own time, these also I called to
mind.
*1. Ennea Hodoi ( "Nine Roads") was the old name of the place
colonized by the Athenians in 436 under the name of Amphipolis.
[2.32] For at a congress [1] of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks, in which
Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate
whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the other Greeks in voting to help
Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis. As proof of this I presented from the public
records the resolution of the Greek congress and the names of those who voted.
*1. The "Congress of Sparta," 371 b.c.
[2.33] "Now," said I, "a claim which Amyntas renounced in the presence
of all the Greeks, and that not by words alone, but by his vote, that claim you his son
have no right to advance. But if you argue that it is right for you to keep the place
because you took it in war, if it is true that it was a war against us in which you took
the city, you do hold it justly, by right of conquest; but if it was from the
Amphipolitans that you took a city which belonged to the Athenians, it is not the property
of the Amphipolitans that you are holding, but territory of Athens."[1]
*1. Amphipolis was founded as a colony of Athens in 436, and became one of the
most important cities on the northern coast. The Spartans seized it early in the
Peloponnesian war, and held it till the close of the war. They then renounced their claim
to it, but the people of the city themselves refused to return to Athenian allegiance.
Repeated expeditions were sent out by the Athenians to retake the city, but without
success. One of Philip's first acts was to seize Amphipolis. It was claimed at Athens that
he had promised, if given a free hand, to restore the place to Athens; but this he refused
to do, and so began the first war between Athens and Philip. The Athenian claim to the
city was therefore one of the most important matters to be presented by the ambassadors
whose mission Aeschines is here describing.
[2.34] Now when I had said this and more beside, at last came Demosthenes' turn to
speak. All were intent, expecting to hear a masterpiece of eloquence. For, as we learned
afterwards, his extravagant boasting had been reported to Philip and his court. So when
all were thus prepared to listen, this creature mouthed forth a proem--an obscure sort of
thing and as dead as fright could make it; and getting on a little way into the subject he
suddenly stopped speaking and stood helpless; finally he collapsed completely.
[2.35] Philip saw his plight and bade him take courage, and not to think, as though he
were an actor on the stage, that his collapse was an irreparable calamity, but to keep
cool and try gradually to recall his speech, and speak it off as he had prepared it. But
he, having been once upset, and having forgotten what he had written, was unable to
recover himself; nay, on making a second attempt, he broke down again. Silence followed;
then the herald bade us withdraw.
[2.36] Now when we were by ourselves, our worthy colleague Demosthenes put on an
exceedingly sour face and declared that I had ruined the city and the allies. And when not
only I, but all the rest of the ambassadors were amazed, and asked him his reason for
saying that, he asked me if I had forgotten the situation at Athens, and if I did not
remember that the people were worn out and exceedingly anxious for peace.
[2.37] "Or does your confidence rest," said he, "on those fifty ships
that have been voted but are never going to be manned? You have so exasperated Philip by
the speech you have made that the effect of it could not possibly be to make peace out of
war, but implacable war out of peace!" I was just beginning to answer him, when the
attendants summoned us.
[2.38] When we had come in and taken our seats, Philip began at the beginning and
undertook to make some sort of answer to every argument which we had advanced. Naturally
he dwelt especially on my argument, for I think I may fairly say that I had omitted
nothing that could be said; and again and again he mentioned my name in the course of his
argument. But in reply to Demosthenes, who had made such a laughing.stock of himself, not
one word was said on a single point, I believe. And you may be sure that this was pain and
anguish to him.
[2.39] But when Philip turned to expressions of friendship, and the bottom dropped out
of the slander which this Demosthenes had previously uttered against me before our fellow
ambassadors, that I was going to be the cause of disagreement and war, then indeed it was
plain to see that he was altogether beside himself, so that even when we were invited to
dinner he behaved with shameful rudeness.
[2.40] When we set out on our return home after completing our mission, suddenly he
began talking to each of us on the way in a surprisingly friendly manner. Why, up to that
time I had never so much as known the meaning of words like "kerkops," or the
so-called "paipalema," or "palimbolon" [1] but now after acquiring him
as expounder of the mysteries of all rascality, I am fully instructed.
*1. We are as ignorant of the particular shades of vulgarity and rascality
conveyed by these words as Aeschines says he was before his initiation.
[2.41] and he would take each of us in turn to one side, and to one he would promise to
open a subscription to help him in his private difficulties, and to another that he would
get him elected general. As for me, he fol- lowed me about, congratulating me on my
ability and praising my speech; so lavish was he in his compliments that I became sick and
tired of him. And when we were all dining together at Larisa, he made fun of himself and
the embarrassment which had come upon him in his speech, and he declared that Philip was
the most wonderful man under the sun.
[2.42] When I had added my testimony, saying something like this, that Philip had shown
excellent memory in his reply to what we had said, and when Ctesiphon, who was the oldest
of us, speaking of his own advanced age and the number of his years, added that in all his
many years he had never looked upon so charming and lovable a man, then this Sisyphus [1]
here clapped his hands and said,
*1. A proverbial name for a cheat.
[2.43] "But, Ctesiphon, it will never do for you to tell the people that, nor
would our friend here," meaning me, "venture to say to the Athenians that Philip
is a man of good memory and great eloquence." And we innocently, not foreseeing the
trick of which you shall hear presently, allowed him to bind us in a sort of agreement
that we would say this to you.[1] And he begged me earnestly not to fail to tell how
Demosthenes also said something in support of our claim to Amphipolis.
*1. Demosthenes dared them to do it; they accepted the challenge and wagered
that they would.
[2.44] Now up to this point I am supported by the testimony of my colleagues in the
embassy, whom he has reviled and slandered from beginning to end of his accusation. But
his words on the platform in your presence you yourselves have heard; so it will not be
possible for me to misrepresent them. And I beg of you to continue to hear patiently the
rest of my narrative. I do not forget that each of you is anxious to hear the story of
Cersobleptes and the charges made about the Phocians, and I am eager to get to those
subjects; but you will not be as well able to follow them unless you shall first hear all
that preceded. And if, in my peril, you allow me to speak as I wish, you will be able to
save me, if I am innocent, and that on good and sufficient grounds; and you will also have
before you the facts that are acknowledged as you proceed to examine the points that are
in dispute.
[2.45] On our return, then, after we had rendered to the senate a brief report of our
mission and had delivered the letter from Philip, Demosthenes praised us to his colleagues
in the senate, and he swore by Hestia, goddess of the senate,[1] that he congratulated the
city on having sent such men on the embassy, men who in honesty and eloquence were worthy
of the state.
*1. The hearth of the Prytaneum, the headquarters of the standing committee of
the senate, was regarded as the common hearth of the state; a statue of Hestia was in this
hall, and in the senate-house was an altar of that goddess.
[2.46] In referring to me he said something like this: that I had not disappointed the
hopes of those who elected me to the embassy. And to cap it all he moved that each of us
be crowned with a garland of wild olive because of our loyalty to the people, and that we
be invited to dine on the morrow in the Prytaneum. To prove that I have spoken to you
nothing but the truth, please let the clerk take the decree, and let him read the
testimony of my colleagues in the embassy.
Decree
Testimony
[2.47] Now when we presented the report of our embassy before the assembly, Ctesiphon
came for ward first and spoke, including in his account the points that he was to make
according to his agreement with Demosthenes, I mean about Philip's social accomplishments,
his personal appearance, and his doughty deeds at the cups. Next Philocrates and Dercylus
spoke briefly; then I came forward.
[2.48] After giving an account of our mission in general, I went on to say, according
to the agreement with my colleagues on the embassy, that Philip showed both memory and
eloquence when he spoke. And I did not forget what Demosthenes had asked me to mention,
namely, that we had agreed that he was to speak about Amphipolis, in case any point should
have been passed over by the rest of us.
[2.49] After we had spoken, last of all Demosthenes arose, and with that imposing air
of his, and rubbing his forehead, when he saw that the people approved my report and were
satisfied with it, he said that he was amazed at both parties, as well the listeners as
the ambassadors, for they were carelessly wasting time--the listeners wasting the time for
taking counsel, the ambassadors the time for giving it, all of them amusing themselves
with foreign gossip, when they ought to be giving attention to our own affairs; for
nothing, he said, was easier than to render account of an embassy.
[2.50] "I wish," said he, "to show you how the thing ought to be
done." As he said this he called for the reading of the decree of the people. When it
had been read he said, "This is the decree according to which we were sent out; what
stands written here, we did. Now, if you please, take the letter that we have brought from
Philip." When this had been read he said, "You have your answer; it remains for
you to deliberate."
[2.51] The people shouted, some applauding his forceful brevity, but more of them
rebuking his abominable jealousy. Then he went on and said, "See how briefly I will
report all the rest. To Aeschines Philip seemed to be eloquent, but not to me; nay, if one
should strip off his luck and clothe another with it, this other would be almost his
equal.
[2.52] To Ctesiphon he seemed to be brilliant in person, but to me not superior to
Aristodemus the actor" (he was one of us on the embassy). "One man says he has a
great memory; so have others. `He was a wonderful drinker'; our Philocrates could beat
him. One says that it was left to me to speak about our claim to Amphipolis; but neither
to you nor to me would this orator be capable of yielding a moment of his time.
[2.53] all this talk of theirs," said he, "is sheer nonsense. But for my
part, I am going to move that safe conduct be granted both for the herald who has come
from Philip, and for the ambassadors who are to come here from him; also I shall move that
on the arrival of the ambassadors the prytanes call a meeting of the assembly for two
successive days to consider not only the question of peace, but the question of an
alliance also; and finally, that if we, the members of the embassy, are thought to deserve
the honor, a vote of thanks be passed, and an invitation be given us to dine tomorrow in
the prytaneum."
[2.54] is proof of the truth of what I say, take, if you please, the decrees, that you,
gentlemen of the jury, may know how crooked he is and how jealous, and how completely he
and Philocrates were in partnership in the whole affair; and that you may know his
character--how treacherous and faithless. Call also my colleagues in the embassy, if you
please, and read their testimony.
Decrees
[2.55] Moreover, he not only made these motions, but afterwards he moved in the senate
to assign seats in the theatre for the Dionysia to the ambassadors of Philip when they
should arrive.[1]
*1. It had been expected that the ambassadors of Philip would arrive in time to
take up their business before the Great Dionysia; the delay in their arrival necessitated
postponing the business until after the festival, a period of about a week.
Read this decree also.
Decree
Now read also the testimony of my colleagues in the embassy, that you may know, fellow
citizens, that when it is a question of speaking in the city's behalf, Demosthenes is
helpless, but against those who have broken bread with him and shared in the same
libations, he is a practised orator.
Testimony
[2.56] You find, therefore, that it was not Philocrates and I who entered into
partnership in the negotiations for the peace, but Philocrates and Demosthenes. And I
think that the proofs which I have presented to you in confirmation of what I have said,
are sufficient. For as to the report we made, you yourselves are my witnesses; but I have
presented to you my colleagues in the embassy as witnesses of what was said in Macedonia
and of what took place in the course of our journey. But you heard and remember the
accusation which Demosthenes made a few moments ago. He began with the speech which I made
in the assembly on the question of the peace.
[2.57] and, utterly untruthful in this part of his accusation, he complained bitterly
about the occasion of that speech, saying that it was delivered in the presence of the
ambassadors whom the Greeks had sent to you; for you had invited them in order that if you
must go on with the war, they might join you against Philip, and that if peace should seem
the better policy, they might participate in the peace. Now see the man's deceit in a
momentous matter, and his outrageous shamelessness.
[2.58] For in the public archives you have the record of the dates when you chose the
several embassies which you sent out into Hellas, when the war between you and Philip was
still in progress, and also the names of the ambassadors; and the men themselves are not
in Macedonia, but here in Athens. Now for embassies from foreign states an opportunity to
address the assembly of the people is always provided by a decree of the senate. Now he
says that the ambassadors from the states of Hellas were present.
[2.59] Come forward, then, Demosthenes, to this platform while I have the floor, and
mention the name of any city of Hellas you choose from which you say the ambassadors had
at that time arrived. And give us to read the senatorial decrees concerning them from the
records in the senate-house, and call as witnesses the ambassadors whom the Athenians had
sent out to the various cities. If they testify that they had returned and were not still
abroad at the time when the city was concluding the peace, or if you offer in evidence any
audience of theirs before the senate, and the corresponding decrees dated at the time of
which you speak, I leave the platform and declare myself deserving of death.
[2.57] and, utterly untruthful in this part of his accusation, he complained bitterly
about the occasion of that speech, saying that it was delivered in the presence of the
ambassadors whom the Greeks had sent to you; for you had invited them in order that if you
must go on with the war, they might join you against Philip, and that if peace should seem
the better policy, they might participate in the peace. Now see the man's deceit in a
momentous matter, and his outrageous shamelessness.
[2.58] For in the public archives you have the record of the dates when you chose the
several embassies which you sent out into Hellas, when the war between you and Philip was
still in progress, and also the names of the ambassadors; and the men themselves are not
in Macedonia, but here in Athens. Now for embassies from foreign states an opportunity to
address the assembly of the people is always provided by a decree of the senate. Now he
says that the ambassadors from the states of Hellas were present.
[2.59] Come forward, then, Demosthenes, to this platform while I have the floor, and
mention the name of any city of Hellas you choose from which you say the ambassadors had
at that time arrived. And give us to read the senatorial decrees concerning them from the
records in the senate-house, and call as witnesses the ambassadors whom the Athenians had
sent out to the various cities. If they testify that they had returned and were not still
abroad at the time when the city was concluding the peace, or if you offer in evidence any
audience of theirs before the senate, and the corresponding decrees dated at the time of
which you speak, I leave the platform and declare myself deserving of death.
[2.60] Now read also what is said in the decree of the allies,[1] in which it stands
expressly written, "Whereas the people of the Athenians are deliberating with regard
to peace with Philip, and whereas the ambassadors have not yet returned whom the people
sent out into Hellas summoning the cities in behalf of the freedom of the Hellenic states,
be it decreed by the allies that as soon as the ambassadors return and make their report
to the Athenians and their allies the prytanes shall call two meetings of the assembly of
the people according to law, and that in these meetings the Athenians shall deliberate on
the question of peace; and whatever the people shall decide, be it voted that this
decision stand as the common vote of the allies." Now please read the decree of the
synod.
*1. A decree of the confederate synod, sitting in Athens. The states referred to
in the preceding paragraph were outside this Athenian league.
Decree of the Synod
[2.61] Now in contrast with this, read, if you please, the decree moved by Demosthenes,
in which he orders the prytanes, after the celebration of the City Dionysia and the
session of the assembly in the precinct of Dionysus,[1] to call two meetings of the
assembly, the one on the eighteenth, the other on the nineteenth; for in thus fixing the
dates, he saw to it that the meetings of your assembly should be held before the
ambassadors from the states of Hellas should have arrived. Moreover, the decree of the
allies, which I acknowledge I also supported, prescribes that you deliberate concerning
peace--nothing more; but Demosthenes prescribes the subject of an alliance also. Read them
the decree.
*1. A meeting regularly held at the close of the City Dionysia to act on any
matters growing out of the conduct of the festival.
Decree
[2.62] You have heard both decrees; by them Demosthenes is convicted of saying that the
ambassadors were here, when they were still abroad, and of having made void the decree of
the allies, when you wished to comply with it. For it was their judgment that we should
wait for the ambassadors from the other states of Hellas but Demosthenes is responsible
for having prevented your waiting for them, not only by his words, most shamelessly shifty
of all men, but by his act and his decree, in which he required us to make our decision
immediately.
[2.63] But he has said that at the first of the two meetings of the assembly, after
Philocrates had spoken, I then arose and found fault with the resolution for peace which
he had introduced, calling it disgraceful and unworthy of the city; but that again on the
next day I spoke in support of Philocrates, and succeeded in sweeping the assembly off its
feet, persuading you to pay no attention to those who talked of our fathers' battles and
trophies, and not to aid the Greeks.
[2.64] But that what he has laid to my charge is not only false, but a thing that could
not have happened, he himself shall furnish one proof, a witness against himself; another
proof all the Athenians shall furnish, and your own memory; a third, the incredibility of
the charge; and the fourth, a man of repute, who is active in public affairs, Amyntor, to
whom Demosthenes exhibited the draft of a decree, asking him whether he should advise him
to hand it to the clerk, a decree not contrary in its provisions to that of Philocrates,
but identical with it.
[2.65] Now, if you please, take and read the decree of Demosthenes,[1] in which you
will see that he has prescribed that in the first of the two meetings of the assembly all
who wish shall take part in the discussion, but that on the next day the presiding
officers shall put the question to vote, without giving opportunity for debate--the day on
which he asserts that I supported Philocrates in the discussion.
*This is not the draft of a decree just spoken of, but that decree in which
Demosthenes had provided for the two meetings of the assembly.
Decree
[2.66] You see that the decrees stand as they were originally written, whereas the
words of rascals are spoken to fit the day and the occasion. My accuser makes two speeches
out of my plea before the assembly, but the decree and the truth make it one. For if the
presiding officers gave no opportunity for discussion in the second meeting, it is
impossible that I spoke then. And if my policy was the same as that of Philocrates, what
motive could I have had for opposing on the first day, and then after an interval of a
single night, in the presence of the same listeners, for supporting? Did I expect to gain
honor for myself, or did I hope to help Philocrates? I could have done neither, but would
have got myself hated by all, and could have accomplished nothing.
[2.67] But please call Amyntor of the deme Herchia and read his testimony. First,
however, I wish to go over its contents with you: Amyntor in support of Aeschines
testifies that when the people were deliberating on the subject of the alliance with
Philip, according to the decree of Demosthenes, in the second meeting of the assembly,
when no opportunity was given to address the people, but when the decrees concerning the
peace and alliance were being put to vote,
[2.68] At that meeting Demosthenes was sitting by the side of the witness, and showed
him a decree, over which the name of Demosthenes stood written; and that he consulted him
as to whether he should hand it to the presiding officers to put to vote; this decree
contained the terms on which Demosthenes moved that peace and alliance he made, and these
terms were identical with the terms which Philocrates had moved. Now, if you please, call
Amyntor of the deme Herchia; if he does not come hither voluntarily, serve summons upon
him.
Testimony
[2.69] You have heard the testimony, fellow citizens. Consider whether you conclude
that it is I whom Demosthenes has accused, or whether on the contrary he has accused
himself in my name. But since he also misrepresents the speech that I made, and puts a
false construction on what was said, I have no disposition to run away, or to deny a word
that was then spoken; I am not ashamed of what I said; on the contrary, I am proud of it.
[2.70] But I wish also to recall to you the time and circumstances of your
deliberations. We went to war in the first place over the question of Amphipolis. In the
course of the war our general succeeded in losing seventy-five allied cities,[1] which
Timotheus, the son of Conon, had won over and made members of the synod--I am determined,
as you see, to speak right out, and to seek safety in frank and truthful speaking; if you
are otherwise minded, do what you will with me; I cannot prevaricate--
*1. Aeschines chooses to speak as though the war with Philip were one and the
same with the other, contemporaneous war, in which a large part of the Athenian allies
broke off from the naval league.
[2.71] and a hundred and fifty triremes which he took from the dockyards he failed to
bring back, a story which the accusers of Chares are never tired of telling you in the
courts; and he spent fifteen hundred talents, not upon his troops, hut upon his tricky
officers, a Deiares, a Deipyrus, a Polyphontes, vagabonds collected from all Hellas (to
say nothing of the wages of his hirelings on the bema and in the popular assembly), who
were exacting from the wretched islanders a contribution of sixty talents a year, and
seizing merchant ships and Greek citizens on the high seas.
[2.72] and instead of respect and the hegemony of Hellas, Athens had a name that stank
like a nest of Myonnesian [1] pirates. And Philip from his base in Macedonia was no longer
contending with us for Amphipolis, but already for Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, our own
possessions, while our citizens were abandoning the Chersonese, the undisputed property of
Athens. And the special meetings of the assembly which you were forced to hold, in fear
and tumult, were more in number than the regular meetings.
*1. Muonnêsos, "Mouse-island", was a little island off the coast of
Thessaly, notorious as a nest of pirates.
[2.73] The situation was so precarious and dangerous that Cephisophon of Paeania, one
of the friends and companions of Chares, was compelled to make the motion that Antiochus,
who commanded the dispatch boats, should sail immediately and hunt up the general who had
been put in charge of our forces, and in case he should happen to find him anywhere,
should tell him that the people of Athens were astonished to learn that Philip was on the
way to the Chersonese, Athenian territory, while as to the general and the force which
they themselves had sent out, the Athenians did not even know what had become of them. To
prove that I am speaking the truth, hear the decree and recall the facts of the war, and
then charge the peace, not to the ambassadors, but to the commanders of our arms.
Decree
[2.74] Such was the situation of the city, such the circumstances under which the
debate on the peace took place. But the popular speakers arose and with one consent
ignored the question of the safety of the state, but called on you to gaze at the
Propylaea of the Acropolis, and remember the battle of , Salamis, and the tombs and
trophies of our forefathers.
[2.75] I replied that we must indeed remember all these, but must imitate the wisdom of
our forefathers, and beware of their mistakes and their unseasonable jealousies; I urged
that we should emulate the battle that we fought at Plataea, the struggles off the shores
of Salamis, the battles of Marathon and Artemisium, and the generalship of Tolmides, who
with a thousand picked men of the Athenians fearlessly marched straight through the
Peloponnesus, the enemy's country.
[2.76] But I urged that we should take warning from the Sicilian expedition, which was
sent out to help the people of Leontini, at a time when the enemy were already in our own
territory and Deceleia was fortified against us; and that final act of folly, when,
outmatched in the war, and offered terms of peace by the Lacedaemonians, with the
agreement that we should hold not only Attica, but Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros also, and
retain the constitutional democracy, the people would have none of it, but chose to go on
with a war that was beyond their powers. And Cleophon, the lyre-maker, whom many
remembered as a slave in fetters, who had dishonourably and fraudulently got himself
enrolled as a citizen, and had corrupted the people by distribution of money,1 threatened
to take his knife and slit the throat of any man who should make mention of peace.
*1. Aristot. Const. Ath. 28 tells us that it was Cleophon who introduced the two
obol donation from the treasury to provide a free seat in the theatre for every citizen
who applied for it. This was the beginning of the Theorika, recognized in the time of
Aeschines as one of the greatest abuses in the democracy.
[2.77] Finally they brought the city to such a pass that she was glad to make peace,
giving up everything, tearing down her walls, receiving a garrison and a Lacedaemonian
governor, and surrendering the democracy to the Thirty, who put fifteen hundred citizens
to death without a trial. I admit that I urged that we should guard against such folly as
that, and imitate the conduct shortly before described. For it was from no stranger that I
heard that story, but from him who is nearest of all men to me.
[2.78] for Atrometus our father, whom you slander, though you do not know him and never
saw what a man he was in his prime--you, Demosthenes, a descendant through your mother of
the nomad Scythians--our father went into exile in the time of the Thirty, and later
helped to restore the democracy; while our mother's brother, our uncle Cleobulus, the son
of Glaucus of the deme Acharnae, was with Demaenetus of the family of the Buzygae, when he
won the naval victory over Cheilon the Lacedaemonian admiral. The sufferings of the city
were therefore a household word with us, familiar to my ears.
[2.79] But you find fault with my service as ambassador to Arcadia and my speech before
the Ten Thousand [1] there, and you say that I have changed sides--yourself more slave
than freeman, all but branded as a runaway! So long as the war lasted, I tried so far as
in me lay to unite the Arcadians and the rest of Hellas against Philip. But when no man
came to the help of our city, but some were waiting to see what was going to happen, and
others were taking the field against us, while the politicians in our own city were using
the war to subsidize the extravagance of their daily life, [2] I acknowledge that I
advised the people to come to terms with Philip, and to make the peace, which you,
Demosthenes, now hold disgraceful, you who never had a weapon of war in your hands--but
which I declare to be much more honourable than the war.
*1. The national assembly of the Arcadians. Aeschines appeared before them in
348 in the attempt to counteract the work of Philip's agents among them.
*2. For this use of chorêgon see the note on Aeschin. Against
Ctesiphon 24 (chorêgeis) of the Speech against Ctesiphon.
[2.80] You ought, fellow citizens, to judge your ambassadors in the light of the crisis
in which they served your generals, in the light of the forces which they commanded. For
you set up your statues and you give your seats of honour and your crowns and your dinners
in the Prytaneum, not to those who have brought you tidings of peace, but to those who
have been victorious in battle. But if the responsibility for the wars is to he laid upon
the ambassadors, while the generals are to receive the rewards, the wars you wage will
know neither truce nor herald of peace, for no man will be willing to be your ambassador.
[2.81] Now it remains for me to speak of Cersobleptes and the Phocians, as well as the
other matters in which I have been slandered. For, fellow citizens, both on the first and
on the second embassy I reported to you what I saw, as I saw it; what I heard, as I heard
it. What was it then in either case: what was it that I saw and what was it that I heard
about Cersobleptes? I, as well as all my colleagues in the embassy, saw the son of
Cersobleptes a hostage at Philip's court; and this is still the case.
[2.82] now it happened on the occasion of our first embassy, that at the moment when I
was leaving for home with the rest of the ambassadors, Philip was setting out for Thrace;
but we had his promise that while you were deliberating concerning peace, he would not set
foot on the Chersonese with an armed force. Now on that day when you voted the peace, no
mention was made of Cersobleptes. But after we had already been elected to receive the
oaths,[1] before we had set forth on the second embassy, an assembly was held, the
presidency of which fell by lot to Demosthenes,[2] who is now accusing me.
*1. The same ambassadors who had negotiated the preliminaries of the peace were
appointed to go back to Macedonia and receive the ratification of the peace by Philip and
his allies.
*2. A board of nine senators presided over the meetings of the assembly; one
member of the board was chosen by lot as chief presiding officer for the day.
[2.83] in that assembly Critobulus of Lampsacus came forward and said that Cersobleptes
had sent him, and he demanded that he should be allowed to give his oath to the
ambassadors of Philip, and that Cersobleptes be enrolled among your allies.[1] When he had
thus spoken, Aleximachus of the deme Pelex handed to the presiding officers a motion to be
read, in which it was written that the representative of Cersobleptes be permitted to join
the other allies in giving the oath to Philip.
*1. The peace that had just been negotiated was to be between Philip and his
allies, and Athens and her allies. By the allies of Athens were meant the members of the
Athenian naval league, whose synod, sitting at Athens, had ratified in advance whatever
action the Athenian people might take as to the peace. Cersobleptes was not a member of
this league, but sought to be admitted at the last moment, in order to gain the protection
of the peace. Demosthenes, feeling that his admission would endanger the success of the
negotiations for peace, attempted to prevent his admission, by insisting on the
irregularity of the procedure; Cersobleptes should have presented his credentials to the
senate and obtained from them a resolution advising the assembly to hear his plea; and
this should have been done at an earlier meeting.
[2.84] When the motion had been read--I think you all remember this--Demosthenes arose
from among the presiding officers and refused to put the motion to vote, saying that he
would not bring to naught the peace with Philip, and that he did not recognize the sort of
allies who joined only in time, as it were, to help in pouring the peace libations; for
they had had their opportunity at an earlier session of the assembly. But you shouted and
called the board of presidents to the platform, and so against his will the motion was put
to vote.
[2.85] To prove that I am speaking the truth, please call Aleximachus, the author of
the motion, and the men who served with Demosthenes on the board of presidents, and read
their testimony.
Testimony
You see, therefore, that Demosthenes, who just now burst into tears here at mention of
Cersobleptes, tried to shut him out of the alliance. Now on the adjournment of that
session of the assembly, Philip's ambassadors proceeded to administer the oaths to your
allies in your army-building.
[2.86] and my accuser has dared to tell you that it was I who drove Critobulus,
Cersobleptes' ambassador, from the ceremony--in the presence of the allies, under the eyes
of the generals, after the people had voted as they did! Where did I get all that power?
How could the thing have been hushed tip? If I had really dared to undertake such a thing,
would you have suffered it, Demosthenes? Would you not have filled the market-place with
your shouts and screams, if you had seen me, as you just now said you did, thrusting the
ambassador away from the ceremony? But please let the herald call the generals and the
representatives of the allies, and do you hear their testimony.
Testimony
[2.87] Is it not, therefore, an outrage, gentlemen, if one dares utter such lies about
a man who is his own--no, I hasten to correct myself, not his own, but your--fellow
citizen, when he is in peril of his life? Wisely, indeed, did our fathers prescribe that,
in the trials for bloodshed which are held at the Palladion,[1] the one who wins his case
must cut in pieces the sacrificial flesh, and take a solemn oath (and the custom of your
fathers is in force to this day), affirming that those jurors who have voted on his side
have voted what is true and right, and that he himself has spoken no falsehood; and he
calls down destruction upon himself and his household, if this be not true, and prays for
many blessings for the jurors. A right provision, fellow citizens, and worthy of a
democracy.
*1. This court was for cases of unintentional homicide.
[2.88] For if no one of you would willingly defile himself with justifiable bloodshed,
surely he would guard against that which was unjustifiable, such as robbing a man of life
or property or civil rights--such acts as have caused some men to kill themselves, others
to be put to death by decree of the state. Will you then, fellow citizens, pardon me, if I
call him a lewd rascal, unclean of body, even to the place whence his voice issues forth,
and if I go on to prove that the rest of his accusation about Cersobleptes is false on the
face of it?
[2.89] You have a practice which in my judgment is most excellent and most useful to
those in your midst who are the victims of slander: you preserve for all time in the
public archives your decrees, together with their dates and the names of the officials who
put them to vote. Now this man has told you that what ruined the cause of Cersobleptes was
this: that when Demosthenes urged that we should go to Thrace, where Cersobleptes was
being besieged, and should solemnly call on Philip to cease doing this thing, I, as leader
of the ambassadors and influential with you, refused, and sat down in Oreus, I and the
rest of the ambassadors, busy with getting foreign consulships for ourselves.[1]
*1. Athenian citizens were employed by foreign states to represent their
interests at Athens and aid their citizens there. Demosthenes asserted that the
ambassadors were intent on getting such appointments for themselves.
[2.90] Hear now the letter which Chares sent to the people at the time, saying that
Cersobleptes had lost his kingdom and that Philip had taken Hieron Oros [1] on the
twenty-fourth of Elaphebolion. And it was Demosthenes, one of the ambassadors, who was
presiding in the assembly here on the twenty-fifth of that month.
*1. This was an important post on the Thracian coast, and had been held by an
Athenian garrison, in the interest of Cersobleptes.
Letter
[2.91] Now not only did we delay all the rest of that month, but it was Munichion [1]
when we set out. As witness of this I will present the senate, for there is a decree of
theirs which commands the ambassadors to set out in order to receive the oaths. Please
read the decree of the senate.
*1. The next month after Elaphebolion.
Decree
Now read also the date of the decree.
Date
[2.92] You hear that the decree was passed on the third of Munichion. How many days
before I set out was it that Cersobleptes lost his kingdom? According to Chares the
general it occurred the month before--that is, if Elaphebolion is the month next before
Munichion! Was it, then, in my power to save Cersobleptes, who was lost before I set out
from home? And now do you imagine that there is one word of truth in his account of what
was done in Macedonia or of what was done in Thessaly, when he gives the lie to the
senate-house and the public archives, and falsifies the date and the meetings of the
assembly?
[2.93] and is it true, Demosthenes, that you at Athens tried to exclude Cersobleptes
from the treaty, but pitied him when you got to Oreus? And do you today accuse me of
having taken bribes, you who were once fined by the Senate of the Areopagus for not
prosecuting your suit for assault, that time when you indicted your cousin Demomeles of
Paeania for the cut on your head that you gave yourself with your own hand? [1] And do you
put on airs before these jurymen, as though they did not know that you are the bastard son
of Demosthenes the cutler? [2]
*1. The reference is to a family quarrel which grew out of the suit of the young
Demosthenes against his guardian.
*2. A bastard in the sense that his mother was of a Scythian family, and so
debarred from legitimate Athenian wedlock. See on Aeschin. 2.22.
[2.94] But you undertook to say that I at first refused to serve on the embassy to the
Amphictyons,[1] and later went on the embassy and was guilty of misconduct, and you read
the one decree and suppressed the other.[2] I was, indeed, chosen one of the ambassadors
to the Amphictyons, and even as I had shown myself zealous in reporting to you the embassy
from which I had returned, so now, although I was in poor health, I did not refuse the new
mission, but promised to serve, if I should have the strength. But as the ambassadors were
on the point of setting out, I sent my brother and his son with my physician to the
senate, not to decline service for me
*1. The embassy was strictly to Philip, but as it was to deal largely with
Amphictyonic business in the hands of Philip and allies of his who were in control of
Amphictyonic affairs, Aeschines can speak of it as "to the Amphictyons."
*2. The reference is to events after the return of the second embassy. After
their report was accepted, a third embassy was appointed to go to Philip, extending the
peace and alliance to his descendants, and declaring that if the Phocians would not submit
to the Amphictyons, the Athenians would take the field against them. Most of the men
appointed on this third embassy had served on the other two. Demosthenes was nominated,
but he refused to serve. Aeschines was elected, but finally on the plea of illness he was
excused by the senate, and his brother was appointed to take his place. The embassy had
gone only as far as Euboea when they received the news that the Phocians had surrendered
to Philip; they therefore immediately returned to Athens. The Athenians now reappointed
the same men, including Aeschines, to go to meet Philip. Aeschines, now recovered in
health, went on this fourth embassy. Demosthenes (Dem. On the False Embassy 126) falsely
declares that he went without having been elected. For the whole story from Demosthenes'
standpoint, see Dem. On the False Embassy 12l-133. In Dem. On the False Embassy 172,
Demosthenes betrays the fact that there really was a reelection for the fourth embassy,
and so confirms Aeschines' statement.
[2.95] (for the law does not permit men who have been elected by the assembly to
decline before the senate), but merely to testify to my illness.When now the ambassadors
had been informed of the fate of the Phocians, they returned, and a meeting of the
assembly was held. I had by this time recovered and was present. When the people insisted
that we who had been originally elected should all go on with the embassy in spite of what
had happened, I thought it my duty to speak the truth to the Athenians.[1]
*1. That is, Aeschines felt that he ought now to say frankly that his health was
such that he could not decline that service.
[2.96] and when I rendered account of my service on that embassy, you, Demosthenes,
preferred no charge, but you proceed against my conduct on this embassy, the embassy that
was appointed to receive the oaths. As to this I will make a clear and just defence. For
it serves you, as it does all liars, to confuse the dates, but it serves me to give the
events in their order, beginning with our journey to receive the oaths.[1]
*1. Aeschines returns to the story of the second embassy.
[2.97] In the first place, of the ten ambassadors (or rather eleven, counting the
representative of the allies, who was with us) not one was willing to mess with
Demosthenes, when we set out on the second embassy, nor even to lodge at the same inn with
him as we journeyed, whenever it could be avoided, for they had seen how he had plotted
against them all on the previous embassy.
[2.98] Now not a word was said about making the journey along the Thracian coast; [1]
for the decree did not prescribe any such journey, but simply that we should receive the
oaths and transact certain other business, nor could we have accomplished anything if we
had gone, for Cersobleptes' fate had already been decided, as you heard a moment ago; for
there is not a word of truth in what he has said, but, at a loss for any true charge, he
resorts to these prodigious lies.
*1. The journey which Demosthenes, in the speech for the prosecution, had said
ought to have been made in order to forestall Philip's conquests there.
[2.99] On the journey two attendants followed him, carrying sacks of bedding; in one of
the sacks, he assured us, was a talent of silver; so that his colleagues were reminded of
those old nicknames of his; for the boys used to call him "Batalos," he was so
vulgar and obscene then when he was growing out of boyhood and was bringing against his
guardians big lawsuits of ten talents each, he was called "Argas";[1] now, grown
to manhood, he has got also the name that we apply to rascals in general,
"Blackmailer."
*1. "Batalos" has been thought to mean "stammerer," or
perhaps "mamma-baby" (see Aeschin. Against Timarchus 126 and 131), but that
explanation would hardly fit this passage. We really have no knowledge as to the
derivation of the word. "Argas" was the name of a venomous snake.
[2.100] and he was going with the intention of ransoming the captives,[1] as he said,
and as he has just now told you, although he knew that at no time during the war had
Philip exacted ransom-money for any Athenian, and although he had heard all Philip's
friends say that he would release the rest also, if peace should be made. And he was
carrying one talent for many unfortunates--sufficient ransom for one man, and not a very
well to-do man at that!
*1. The Athenian citizens who had been captured at the fall of Olynthus, and
were now in slavery in Macedonia.
[2.101] But when we reached Macedonia and found Philip returned from Thrace, we held a
meeting;1 the decree under which we were acting was read, and we went over the
instructions that had been given us in addition to the business of receiving the oaths.
But finding that no one mentioned the subjects that were most important, and all were
dwelling on minor matters, I spoke words which I must repeat to you.
*1. This was a private meeting of the Athenian ambassadors to discuss what they
should say to Philip at the coming audience.
[2.102] and in heaven's name, gentlemen, even as you allowed my accuser to speak as he
himself chose, pray so continue to listen quietly to the defence also, in the same manner
in which from the beginning you have listened during all my speech thus far. Well, as I
just now intimated, fellow citizens, at the meeting of the ambassadors I said that it
seemed to me that we were strangely ignoring the most important matter that the people had
entrusted to us.
[2.103] "The reception of the oaths, the discussion of the other questions, and
the talk about the prisoners, all that sort of thing could have been done, I think, if the
city had entrusted it to some of its petty servants and sent them. But to reach a right
solution of the supreme question, so far as that is in our power or Philip's,[1] this is
now a task for wise ambassadors. I mean," said I, "the question of the
expedition to Thermopylae, which you see in course of preparation. That I am not wide of
the mark in this matter, I will show you by weighty considerations.
*1. The supreme question of the hour was the settlement of the long continued
Phocian war. Whether Phocis was to be defeated and Thebes given a dangerous increase of
power depended in large measure on what action Philip and the Athenians should decide to
take, either jointly or severally. The Athenians had been unable to persuade Philip's
ambassadors to include the Phocians among the states to be protected by the peace, but it
was hoped that these ambassadors from Athens would be able to persuade Philip himself to
favour Phocis as against Thebes.
[2.104] For ambassadors from Thebes are here, ambassadors from Lacedaemonia have
arrived, and here are we with a decree of the people in which it stands written, `The
ambassadors shall also negotiate concerning any other good thing that may be within their
power.' All Hellas is watching to see what is going to happen. If now our people had
thought it wise to speak out plainly to Philip, bidding him strip the Thebans of their
insolence, and rebuild the walls of the Boeotian towns,1 they would have asked this of him
in the decree. But as it is, by the obscurity of their language they left open a way of
retreat for themselves, in case they should fail to persuade him, and they thought best to
take the risk its our persons.
*1. The small towns of Boeotia which had been subjugated by Thebes, and were now
supporting the Phocians in the hope of regaining their independence.
[2.105] Men, therefore, who are ambitious to serve the state must not assume the
function of other ambassadors whom the Athenians could have sent instead of us, and at the
same time, on their own initiative, try to avoid stirring up the hostility of the Thebans.
Epameinondas was a Theban, and he did not cower before the fame of the Athenians, but
spoke right out in the Theban assembly, saying that they must remove the propylaea of the
Acropolis of Athens and set it up at the entrance to the Cadmeia."
[2.106] As I was in the midst of these words, Demosthenes protested with a loud voice,
as all our colleagues know, for on top of all his other crimes he is for the Boeotians. At
any rate words like these came from him: "This fellow is full of quarrelsomeness and
rashness. For myself, I confess that I am timid, that I fear danger from afar, but I
protest against embroiling the cities one with another; I hold it to be the wise course
that we ambassadors refrain from meddlesome conduct.
[2.107] Philip is setting out for Thermopylae; I cover my eyes. No man is going to call
me to account for the wars of Philip, but for what I say that I ought not to say, or what
I do that I was not instructed to do." The upshot of the matter was that the
ambassadors, when asked for their opinion man by man, voted that each of us should say
what he thought was to our interests. To show that I speak the truth, please call my
colleagues and read their testimony.
Testimony
[2.108] Accordingly, fellow citizens, when the ambassadors were assembled at Pella, and
Philip had arrived, and the herald called the ambassadors of the Athenians, we came
forward, not in the order of age, as in the former embassy--a procedure which found favour
with some, and which seemed to be in accord with the orderly way of our city [1]--but in
the way that was dictated by the effrontery of Demosthenes. For he said that he was the
youngest of all, but declared that he could not yield the position of first speaker, and
would not permit a certain person--hinting at me--to take possession of Philip's ears and
leave the rest no chance to speak.
*1. The Athenian "way" in such matters is described in Aeschin. . Against Ctesiphon 2.
[2.109] He began his speech with certain slanderous allusions to his colleagues, to the
effect that not all of us had come with the same end in view, nor were we all of one mind;
and then he proceeded to review his own previous services to Philip: first, his defence of
Philocrates' motion, when Philocrates, having moved that Philip be permitted to send
ambassadors to the Athenians to discuss peace, was defendant on the charge of having made
an unconstitutional proposal; secondly, he read the motion of which Demosthenes himself
was author, to grant safe conduct to the herald and ambassadors from Philip; and thirdly,
the motion that restricted the people's discussion of peace to appointed days.
[2.110] To the account he added a conclusion like this: that he had been the first to
put a curb on those who were trying to block the peace; that he had done this, not by his
words, but by fixing the dates. Then he brought up another motion, the one which provided
that the people should discuss an alliance also; then, after that, the motion about
assigning the front seats at the Dionysia to Philip's ambassadors.
[2.111] He alluded also to the special attention he had shown them: the placing of
cushions, and certain watchings and vigils of the night, caused by men who were jealous of
him and wished to bring insult upon his honourable name! And that utterly absurd story,
whereat his colleagues covered their faces for shame, how he gave a dinner to the
ambassadors of Philip; and how when they set out for home he hired for them some teams of
mules, and escorted them on horseback. For he did not hide in the dark, as certain others
do, but made an exhibition of his fawning conduct.
[2.112] And finally he carefully corrected those other statements:[1]"I did not
say that you are beautiful, for a woman is the most beautiful of all beings; nor that you
are a wonderful drinker, for that is a compliment for a sponge, in my opinion; nor that
you have a remarkable memory, for I think such praise belongs to the professional
sophist." But not to prolong the story, he said such things in the presence of the
ambassadors from almost the whole of Hellas, that laughter arose such as you seldom hear.
*1. The statements that his colleagues had made to the assembly on their return
from the first embassy, as related in Aeschin. 2.47 and Aeschin. 2.52.
[2.113] But when at last he stopped and there was silence, I was forced to speak--after
such an exhibition of ill-breeding and such excess of shameful flattery. Necessarily, by
way of preface, I made a brief reply to his insinuations against his colleagues, saying
that the Athenians had sent us as ambassadors, not to offer apologies in Macedonia for
ourselves, but as men adjudged by our life at home to be worthy of our city.
[2.114] Then after speaking briefly on the subject of the oaths for which we had come,
I reviewed the other matters that you had entrusted to us. For the eminent Demosthenes,
for all his exceeding eloquence, had not mentioned a single essential point. And in
particular I spoke about the expedition to Thermopylae, and about the holy places, and
Delphi, and the Amphictyons. I called on Philip to settle matters there, preferably not
with arms, but with vote and verdict; but if that should be impossible (it was already
evident that it was, for the army was collected and on the spot), I said that he who was
on the point of deciding the fate of the holy places of our nation ought to give careful
thought to the question of piety, and to give attention to those who undertook to give
instruction as to our traditions.
[2.115] At the same time I reviewed from the beginning the story of the founding of the
shrine, and of the first synod of the Amphictyons that was ever held; and I read their
oaths, in which the men of ancient times swore that they would raze no city of the
Amphictyonic states, nor shut them off from flowing water either in war or in peace; that
if anyone should violate this oath, they would march against such an one and raze his
cities; [1] and if any one should violate the shrine of the god or be accessory to such
violation, or make any plot against the holy places, they would punish him with hand and
foot and voice, and all their power. To the oath was added a mighty curse.
*1. The city that has violated its Amphictyonic oath can no longer claim the
protection of that oath.
[2.116] When I had read all this, I solemnly declared that in my opinion it was not
right that we should overlook the fact that the cities in Boeotia were lying in ruins. [1]
To prove that they were Amphictyonic cities and thus protected by the oaths, I enumerated
twelve tribes which shared the shrine: the Thessalians, Boeotians (not the Thebans only),
Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaebi, Magnetes, Dolopians, Locrians, Oetaeans, Phthiotians,
Malians, and Phocians. And I showed that each of these tribes has an equal vote, the
greatest equal to the least: that the delegate from Dorion and Cytinion has equal
authority with the Lacedaemonian delegates, for each tribe casts two votes; again, that of
the Ionian delegates those from Eretria and Priene have equal authority with those from
Athens and the rest in the same way.
*1. See note on Aeschin. 2.104.
[2.117] Now I showed that the motive of this expedition was righteous and just; but I
said that the Amphictyonic Council ought to be convened at the temple, receiving
protection and freedom to vote,[1] and that those individuals who were originally
responsible for the seizure of the shrine ought to be punished--not their cities, but the
individuals who had plotted and carried out the deed; and that those cities which
surrendered the wrongdoers for trial ought to be held guiltless. "But if you take the
field and with your forces confirm the wrongdoing of the Thebans,[2] you will receive no
gratitude from those whom you help, for you could not possibly do them so great a service
as the Athenians once did, and they have no memory for that; while you will be wronging
those whom you leave in the lurch, and will find them, not your friends in the future, but
all the more your enemies."
*1. The Council had been unable to meet while the Phocians were holding the
shrine. Aeschines would have Philip' s army occupy Delphi, and so restore the Amphictyons
to their rights.
*2. If Philip should help the Thebans to subdue the Phocians, the confirmation
of Theban control over the Boeotian cities would naturally follow, as it did in the event.
[2.118] But not to waste time in reciting to you now precisely what was spoken there, I
will content myself with this brief summary of it all. Fortune and Philip were masters of
the issue, but I, of loyalty to you and of the words spoken. My words were words of
justice, and they were spoken in your interest; the issue was not according to our prayer,
but according to Philip's acts. Who, therefore, is it that deserves your approval? Is it
the man who showed no desire to do any good thing whatever, or the man who left undone
nothing that was in his power? But I now pass over many things for lack of time.
[2.119] He said that I deceived you by saying that within a few days Thebes would be
humbled; and that I told about the Euboeans, how I had frightened them, and that I led you
on into empty hopes. But, fellow citizens, let me tell you what it is that he is doing.
While I was with Philip I demanded--and when I returned to you I reported that I thought
it right--that Thebes should be Boeotian, and not Boeotia, Theban. He asserts, not that I
reported this, but that I promised it.
[2.120] And I told you that Cleochares of Chalcis said that he was surprised at the
sudden agreement between you and Philip, especially when we had been instructed "to
negotiate concerning any good thing that should be within our power." For he said the
people of the small states, like himself, were afraid of the secret diplomacy of the
greater. Demosthenes asserts, not that I related this fact, but that I promised to hand
over Euboea! But I had supposed that when the city was about to deliberate on matters of
supreme importance, no statement from any Hellenic source ought to be ignored.
[2.121] But he falsely declared that when he wished to report the truth, he was
hindered by me, together with Philocrates--for he divided the responsibility in that case
also. Now I should like to ask you this: Has any ambassador sent out from Athens ever been
prevented from presenting to the people an official report of his conduct? And if one had
suffered such treatment and had been repudiated by his colleagues, would he ever have made
a motion that they be given a vote of thanks and invited to dinner? But Demosthenes on his
return from the second embassy, in which he says that the cause of Hellas was ruined,
moved the vote of thanks in his decree;
[2.122] and not only that, but when I had reported to the people what I had said about
the Amphictyons and Boeotians, not briefly and rapidly as now, but as nearly word for word
as possible, and when the people heartily applauded, I called upon him together with the
other ambassadors, and asked them whether my report was true, and identical with what I
had said to Philip; and when all my colleagues had testified and praised me, after them
all Demosthenes arose and said: No, I had not to-day been speaking as I spoke there, but
that I spoke twice as well there. You who are going to give the verdict are my witnesses
of this.
[2.123] and yet what better opportunity could he have had to convict me than to do it
then and there, if I was in any wise deceiving the city? You say, Demosthenes, that while
I was in a conspiracy against the city in the first embassy, you were not aware of it, but
that on the second you found it out--the embassy in which we find you testifying to my
services! And while accusing me for my conduct on the first embassy, you at the same time
deny that you accuse me, and direct your accusations against the embassy that was sent to
take the oaths. And yet if it is the peace you find fault with, it was you who moved to
add the alliance to it. And if Philip did at any point deceive the city, his deception had
to do with the peace, for he was maneuvering for the precise form of peace that would
serve his own advantage. But it was the earlier embassy that offered the opportunity to
accomplish this; the second took place after the thing was already done.
[2.124] How he has deceived you--deceit is ever the mark of the charlatan--see from his
own words. He says that I went down the Loedias river to Philip in a canoe by night, and
that I wrote for Philip the letter which came to you. For Leosthenes, who had been exiled
from Athens through the work of blackmailers, was not competent to write a clever
letter--a man whom some do not hesitate to rank next to Callistratus of Aphidna as an able
orator!
[2.125] and Philip himself was not competent, against whom Demosthenes was not able to
hold his own when he tried to speak in your behalf! nor Python of Byzantium, a man who
takes pride in his ability as a writer! but, as it seems, the thing required my help too!
And you say that time and again I had private interviews with Philip in the daytime, but
you accuse me of paddling down the river in the night--the need of a midnight letter was
so urgent!
[2.126] But there is no truth in your story, as those who messed with me have come to
testify--Aglaocreon of Tenedos and latrocles the son of Pasiphon, with whom I slept every
night during the whole time, from beginning to end; they know that I was never away from
them a single night, nor any part of a night. We present also our slaves and offer them
for torture;[1] and I offer to interrupt my speech if the prosecution agree. The officer
shall come in and administer the torture in your presence, gentlemen of the jury, if you
so order. There is still time enough to do it, for in the apportionment of the day eleven
jars of water have been assigned to my defence.[2]
*1. Slave testimony was accepted in the Athenian courts only when it was given,
or offered, under torture.
*2. A definite time, measured by the water clock, or clepsydra, was assigned to
each side. How long a time would be occupied by the running of one amphora of water
through the clepsydra, we have no means of knowing.
[2.127] If the slaves testify that I ever slept away from these messmates of mine,
spare me not, fellow citizens, but rise up and kill me. But if you, Demosthenes, shall be
convicted of lying, let this be your penalty--to confess in this presence that you are a
hermaphrodite, and no free man. Please summon the slaves to the platform here, and read
the testimony of my colleagues.
Testimony
Challenge
[2.128] Since now he does not accept the challenge, saying that he would not rest his
case on the testimony of tortured slaves, please take this letter, which Philip sent. For
a letter that kept us busy writing all night long must obviously be full of clever
deception of the city.
Letter
[2.129] You hear, gentlemen, what he wrote: "I gave my oath to your ambassadors
and he has written the names of those of his allies who were present, both the names of
the representatives themselves and of their states; and he says he will send to you those
of his allies who were not there in time. Does it seem to you that it would have been
beyond Philip's ability to write that in the daytime, and without my help?
[2.130] But, by heaven, the only thing, apparently, that this man Demosthenes cares
about, is to win applause while he is on the platform but whether or not a little later he
will be considered the greatest scoundrel in Hellas, for that he appears to care not a
whit. For how could one put any faith in a man who has undertaken to maintain that it was
not Philip's generalship, but my speeches, that enabled Philip to get this side
Thermopylae! And he gave you a sort of reckoning and enumeration of the days during which,
while I was making my report on the embassy, the couriers of Phalaecus, the Phocian
tyrant, were reporting to him how matters stood in Athens, while the Phocians, putting
their trust in me, admitted Philip this side Thermopylae, and surrendered their own cities
to him.
[2.131] Now all this is the invention of my accuser. It was fortune, first of all, that
ruined the Phocians, and she is mistress of all things; and secondly, it was the long
continuance of the ten years' war. For the same thing that built up the power of the
tyrants in Phocis, destroyed it also: they established themselves in power by daring to
lay hands on the treasures of the shrine, and by the use of mercenaries they put down the
free governments; and it was lack of funds that caused their overthrow, when they had
spent all their resources on these mercenaries.
[2.132] the third cause of their ruin was mutiny, such as usually attends armies which
are poorly supplied with funds. The fourth cause was Phalaecus' inability to foresee the
future. For it was plain that the Thessalians and Philip were going to take the field; and
shortly before the peace with you was concluded, ambassadors came to you from the
Phocians, urging you to help them, and offering to hand over to you Alponus, Thronion, and
Nicaea, the posts which controlled the roads to Thermopylae.
[2.133] But when you had passed a decree that the Phocians should hand over these posts
to your general Proxenus, and that you should man fifty triremes, and that all citizens up
to the age of forty years should take part in the expedition, then instead of surrendering
the Posts to Proxenus, the tyrants arrested those ambassadors of their own who had offered
to hand over the garrison posts to you and when your heralds carried the proclamation of
the sacred truce of the Mysteries,[1] the Phocians alone in all Hellas refused to
recognize the truce. Again, when Archidamus the Laconian was ready to take over those
posts and guard them, the Phocians refused his offer, answering him that it was the danger
from Sparta that they feared, not the danger at home.
*1. A provision for the safe conduct of all Greeks, who wished to attend the
celebration of the lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, which took place in Attica in the spring.
[2.134] That was before you had come to terms with Philip; but on the very day when you
were discussing the question of the peace, the letter of Proxenus was read to you, in
which he said that the Phocians had failed to hand over the posts to him; and on the same
day the heralds of the Mysteries reported to you that the Phocians alone in all Hellas had
refused the sacred truce, and had, furthermore, arrested the ambassadors who had been
here. To prove that I am speaking the truth, please call the heralds of the truce, and the
envoys Callicrates and Metagenes, whom Proxenus our general sent to the Phocians, and let
the letter of Proxenus be read.
Testimony
Letter
[2.135] The dates, fellow citizens, taken from the public archives, have been read and
compared in your hearing, and you have heard the witnesses, who further testify that
before I was elected ambassador, Phalaecus the Phocian tyrant distrusted us and the
Lacedaemonians as well, but put his trust in Philip.
[2.136] But was Phalaecus the only one who failed to discern what the outcome was going
to be? How stood public opinion here? Were you not yourselves all expecting that Philip
was going to humble the Thebans, when he saw their audacity, and because he was unwilling
to increase the power of men whom he could not trust? And did not the Lacedaemonians take
part with us in the negotiations against the Thebans, and did they not finally come into
open collision with them in Macedonia and threaten them? Were not the Theban ambassadors
themselves perplexed and alarmed? And did not the Thessalians laugh at all the rest and
say that the expedition was for their own benefit?
[2.137] Did not some of' Philip's companions say explicitly to some of us that Philip
was going to reestablish the cities in Boeotia? Had not the Thebans already, suspicious of
the situation, called out all their reserves and taken the field? And did not Philip, when
he saw this, send a letter to you calling upon you to come out with all your forces in
defence of the cause of justice? As for those who are now for war, and who call peace
cowardice, did they not prevent your going out, in spite of the fact that peace and
alliance had been made with Philip? And did they not say that they were afraid he would
take your soldiers as hostages?
[2.138] Was it I, therefore, who prevented the people from imitating our forefathers,
or was it you, Demosthenes, and those who were in conspiracy with you against the common
good? And was it a safer and more honourable course for the Athenians to take the field at
a time when the Phocians were at the height of their madness and at war with Philip, with
Alponus and Nicaea in their possession--for Phalaecus had not yet surrendered these posts
to the Macedonians--and when those whom we were proposing to aid would not accept the
truce for the Mysteries, and when we were leaving the Thebans in our rear: or after Philip
had invited us, when we had already received his oaths and had an alliance with him, and
when the Thessalians and the other Amphictyons were taking part in the expedition?
[2.139] Was not the latter opportunity far better than the former? But at this later
time, thanks to the combination of cowardice and envy in you, Demosthenes, the Athenians
brought in their property from the fields, when I was already absent on the third
embassy,[1] and appearing before the assembly of the Amphictyons [2]--that embassy on
which you dare to say that I set out without having been elected, although, enemy as you
are to me, you have never to this day been willing to prosecute me as having wrongly
served on it; and we may safely assume that this is not because you begrudge me bodily
pains and penalties.
*1. See on Aeschin. 2.94. This was, strictly speaking, the fourth embassy; but
as it was appointed to do what had been entrusted to the third, and was made up of the
same men, Aeschines speaks of it as the third.
*2. The ambassadors to Philip, while not formally accredited to negotiate with
the Amphictyonic Council, which Philip had called together to act on the punishment of the
Phocians, were present at Delphi during their meeting, and Aeschines addressed the
Council. see Aeschin. 2.142.
[2.140] When, therefore, the Thebans were besieging him with their importunities, and
our city was in confusion, thanks to you, and the Athenian hoplites were not with him;[1]
when the influence of the Thessalians had been added to that of the Thebans, thanks to
your shortsightedness and because of the hostility to the Phocians which the Thessalians
had inherited from that ancient time when Phocians seized and flogged the Thessalian
hostages; and when, before my coming and that of Stephanus, Dercylus, and the rest of the
ambassadors, Phalaecus already made terms and departed;
*1. See Aeschin. 2.137.
[2.141] Then the people of Orchomenus were in exceeding fear, and had begged for peace,
on condition that their lives should be spared and they be allowed to go forth from
Boeotia;[1] when the Theban ambassadors were standing by, and when it was plain that
Philip was threatened with the hostility of the Thebans and Thessalians: then it was that
the cause was lost not from any fault of mine, but thanks to your treachery, Demosthenes,
and your hired service to Thebes. Of this I think I can furnish important confirmation
from what has actually happened.
*1. Orchomenus was one of the towns referred to in Aeschin. 2.104.
[2.142] For if there were any truth in these assertions of yours, the Boeotian
fugitives, for whose expulsion I was responsible, and the Phocian exiles, whose
restoration I prevented, would be accusing me now. But as a matter of fact they ignore the
misfortunes that have come upon them, and satisfied with my loyalty to them, the Boeotian
exiles have held a meeting and chosen men to speak in my behalf; and from the towns of
Phocis have come ambassadors whose lives I saved when I was representing you before the
Amphictyons on the third embassy; for when the representatives from Oetaea went so far as
to say that they ought to cast the grown men over the cliffs, I brought the Phocians into
the assembly of the Amphictyons and secured a hearing for them. For Phalaecus had made
terms for himself and gone, and those who were guiltless were on the point of being put to
death; but I pleaded for them, and their lives were spared.
[2.143] To prove that I speak the truth, please call Mnason the Phocian and those who
have come with him, and call the delegates chosen by the Boeotian exiles. Come up to the
platform, Liparus and Pythion, and do me the same service for the saving of my life that I
did for you.
Plea of the Boeotians and Phocians
Would it not, then, be monstrous treatment for me if I should be convicted when my
accuser is Demosthenes, the paid servant of Thebes and the wickedest man in Hellas, while
my advocates are Phocians and Boeotians?
[2.144] But he dared to say that I am tripped up by my own words. For he says [1] that
when I was prosecuting Timarchus I said that his lewdness was a matter of common report,
and that Hesiod, a good poet, says, "But Common Report dies never, the voice that
tongues of many men do utter. She also is divine." [2] He says that this same god
comes now and accuses me, for everybody says, according to him, that I have got money from
Philip.
*1. Dem. On the False Embassy 243 f.
*2. Aeschin. Against Timarchus 129.
[2.145] But be assured, fellow citizens, there is the greatest difference between
common report and slander. For common report has no affinity with malice, but malice is
slander's own sister. I will define each of them specifically: it is a case of common
report when the mass of the people, on their own impulse and for no reason that they can
give, say that a certain event has taken place; but it is slander when one person,
insinuating an accusation in the minds of the people, calumniates a man in all the
meetings of the assembly and before the senate. To Common Report we offer public
sacrifice, as to a god, but the slanderer we prosecute, in the name of the people, as a
scoundrel. Do not, therefore, join together the most honourable and the most shameful
things.
[2.146] At many of his charges I was indeed angry, but most of all when he accused me
of being a traitor. For to bring such charges as those was to hold me up to public view as
a brute, without natural affection, and chargeable in the past with many other sins. Now
of my daily life and conduct I think you are competent judges. But facts that escape the
public eye, yet are of greatest importance in the opinion of men of character, I will
bring into court as my witnesses--facts very many in number and to my credit in the eyes
of the law--in order that seeing them you may know what pledges I left at home when I set
out for Macedonia on the embassy.
[2.147] For you, Demosthenes, fabricated these charges against me, but I will tell my
story, as I was taught to do from childhood, truthfully. Yonder is my father, Atrometus;
there are few older men among all the citizens, for he is now ninety-four years old. When
he was a young man, before the war destroyed his property, he was so fortunate as to be an
athlete; banished by the Thirty, he served as a soldier in Asia, and in danger he showed
himself a man; by birth he was of the phratry [1] that uses the same altars as the
Eteobutadae, from whom the priestess of Athena Polias comes; and he helped in the
restoration of the democracy, as I said a little while ago.[2]
*1. Each of the four Athenian tribes was divided into three phratries. Under the
democracy these groups of families had only religious functions. Each phratry had its own
place of worship.
*2. See Aeschin. 2.78.
[2.148] It is my good fortune, too, that all the members of my mother's family are
free-born citizens; and to-day I see her here before my eyes in anxiety and fear for my
safety. And yet, Demosthenes, this mother of mine went out to Corinth an exile, with her
husband, and shared the disasters of the democracy; but you, who claim to be a man--that
you really are a man I should not venture to say--you were once indicted for desertion,
and you saved yourself by buying off the man who indicted you, Nicodemus of Aphidna, whom
afterward you helped Aristarchus to destroy;[1] wherefore you are polluted, and have no
right to be invading the market-place.[2]
*1. In the spring of 348 Demosthenes was serving on an expedition sent out to
Euboea. On the approach of the Great Dionysia he was obliged to return to the city to
serve as choragus, a burden which he had previously volunteered to take upon himself, at
heavy cost. Personal enemies of his brought, but did not prosecute, a charge of desertion
in the field.The murder of Nicodemus by Aristarchus, a young friend of Demosthenes, was a
notorious case, but the attempts of Demosthenes' enemies to connect him with it were
entirely unsuccessful. See Aeschin. Against Timarchus 172.
*2. A man under indictment for murder was not allowed access to the
market-place, for contact with a murderer would pollute innocent men.
[2.149] Philochares yonder, our eldest brother, a man not of ignoble pursuits, as you
slanderously assert, [1] but a frequenter of the gymnasia, a one-time comrade of
Iphicrates in the field, and a general now for the past three years, has come to beg you
to save me. Our youngest brother, too, Aphobetus yonder, who as ambassador to the king of
Persia has served you to the credit of the city, who administered your revenues honestly
and well when you called him to the department of the treasury, who has gotten him
children lawfully--not by putting his wife in Cnosion's bed, as you, Demosthenes, did
yours--he also is here, despite your slanders ;for defamation goes no further than the
ears.
*1. For Demosthenes' taunts as to the brothers of Aeschines and those of his
wife, see his speech Dem. On the False Embassy 237 and 287.
[2.150] But you dared to speak about my wife's family also--so shameless you are and so
inherently thankless, you that have neither affection nor respect for Philodemus,[1] the
father of Philon and Epicrates, the man by whose good offices you were enrolled among the
men of your deme, as the elder Paeanians know.[2] But I am amazed if you dare slander
Philon, and that, too, in the presence of the most reputable men of Athens, who, having
come in here to render their verdict for the best interest of the state, are thinkingmore
about the lives we have lived than what we say.
*1. See Aeschin. 2.152.
*2. Aeschines insinuates that only by some extraordinary favoritism could
Demosthenes, with his strain of Scythian blood, ever have been recognized as an Athenian
of pure blood, and so enrolled in the citizen-list when he came to manhood.
[2.151] Which think you would they pray heaven to give them, ten thousand hoplites like
Philon, so fit in body and so sound of heart, or thrice ten thousand lewd weaklings like
you? You try to bring into contempt the good breeding of Epicrates, Philon's brother; but
who ever saw him behaving in an indecent manner, either by day in the Dionysiac
procession, as you assert, or by night? For you certainly could never say that he was
unobserved, for he was no stranger.
[2.152] And I myself, gentlemen, have three children, one daughter and two sons, by the
daughter of Philodemus, the sister of Philon and Epicrates; and I have brought them into
court with the others for the sake of asking one question and presenting one piece of
evidence to the jury. This question I will now put to you; for I ask, fellow citizens,
whether you believe that I would have betrayed to Philip, not only my country, my personal
friendships, and my rights in the shrines and tombs of my fathers, but also these
children, the dearest of mankind to me. Do you believe that I would have held his
friendship more precious than the safety of these children? By what lust have you seen me
conquered? What unworthy act have I ever done for money? It is not Macedon that makes men
good or bad, but their own inborn nature; and we have not come back from the embassy
changed men, but the same men that you yourselves sent out.
[2.153] But in public affairs I have become exceedingly entangled with a cheat and
rascal, who not even by accident can speak a truthful word. No: when he is lying, first
comes an oath by his shameless eyes, and things that never happened he not only presents
as facts, but he even tells the day on which they occurred; and he invents the name of
some one who happened to be there, and adds that too, imitating men who speak the truth.
But we who are innocent are fortunate in one thing, that he has no intelligence with which
to supplement the trickery of his character and his knack of putting words together. For
think what a combination of folly and ignorance there must be in the man who could invent
such a lie against me as that about the Olynthian woman,[1] such a lie that you shut him
up in the midst of his speech. For he was slandering a man who is the farthest removed
from any such conduct, and that in the presence of men who know.
*1. See Aeschin. 2.4, note.
[2.154] But see how far back his preparations for this accusation go. For there is a
certain Olynthian living here, Aristophanes by name. Demosthenes was introduced to him by
some one, and having found out that he is an able speaker, paid extravagant court to him
and won his confidence; this accomplished, he tried to persuade him to give false
testimony against me before you, promising, namely, to give him five hundred drachmas on
the spot, if he would consent to come into court and complain of me, and say that I was
guilty of drunken abuse of a woman of his family, who had been taken captive; and he
promised to pay him five hundred more when he should have given the testimony.
[2.155] But Aristophanes answered him, as he himself told the story, that so far as his
exile and present need were concerned, Demosthenes' aim had not been wide of the
mark--indeed no aim could have been closer--but that he had entirely misjudged his
character; for he could do nothing of the sort. I will offer Aristophanes himself to
testify to the truth of what I say. Please call Aristophanes the Olynthian, and read his
testimony, and call those who heard his story and reported it to me--Dercylus, of the deme
Hagnus, the son of Autocles, and Aristeides of Cephisia, the son of Euphiletus.
Testimony
[2.156] You hear the sworn testimony. But these wicked arts of rhetoric, which
Demosthenes offers to teach our youth, and has now employed against me, his tears and
groans for Hellas, and his praise of Satyrus the comic actor, because over the cups he
begged of Philip the release of certain friends of his who were captives in chains,
digging in Philip's vineyard--you remember, do you not, how after this preface he lifted
up that shrill and abominable voice of his and cried out,
[2.157] "How outrageous that when a man whose business it is to act the parts of a
Carion or of a Xanthias [1] showed himself so noble and generous, Aeschines, the
counsellor of the greatest city, the adviser of the Ten Thousand of Arcadia, did not
restrain his insolence, but in drunken heat, when Xenodocus, one of the picked corps of
Philip, was entertaining us, seized a captive woman by the hair, and took a strap and
flogged her!"
*1. Satyrus, the comic actor, would often take slave parts, for which Carion and
Xanthias were among the traditional names.
[2.158] If you had believed him, or Aristophanes had helped him out in his his against
me, I should have been destroyed under shameful accusations. Will you therefore harbour
longer in your midst guilt that is so fraught with doom to itself--God grant it be not to
the city!--and will you, who purify your assembly,[1] offer the prayers that are contained
in your decrees on motion of this man, as you send your troops out by land or sea? You
know the words of Hesiod: [2]
"Ofttimes whole peoples suffer from one man
Whose deeds are sinful and whose purpose base."
*1. The Athenian assembly was regularly opened with a sacrifice of purification
and prayer.
*2. Hes. WD 240
[2.159] One thing more I wish to add to what I have said: if there is anywhere among
mankind any form of wickedness in which I fail to show that Demosthenes is preeminent, let
my death be your verdict. But I think many difficulties attend a defendant: his danger
calls his mind away from his anger, to the search for such arguments as shall secure his
safety, and it causes him earnest thought lest he overlook some one of the accusations
which have been brought against him. I therefore invite you, and at the same time myself,
to recall the accusations.
[2.160] Consider, then, one by one, fellow citizens, the possible grounds for my
prosecution: what decree have I proposed, what law have I repealed, what law have I kept
from being passed, what covenant have I made in the name of the city, what vote as to the
peace have I annulled, what have I added to the terms of peace that you did not vote?
[2.161] The peace failed to please some of our public men. Then ought they not to have
opposed it at the time, instead of putting me on trial now? Certain men who were getting
rich out of the war from your war-taxes and the revenues of the state, have now been
stopped; for peace does not feed laziness. Shall those, then, who are not wronged, but are
themselves wronging the city, punish the man who was sponsor for the peace,[1] and will
you, who are benefited by it, leave in the lurch men who have proved themselves useful to
the commonwealth?
*1. Philocrates, the prime mover in the peace had already gone into banishment,
afraid to stand trial.
[2.162] Yes, my accuser says, because I joined Philip in singing paeans when the cities
of Phocis had been razed. [1] What evidence could be sufficient to prove that charge? I
was, indeed, invited to receive the ordinary courtesies, as were my colleagues in the
embassy. Those who were invited and were present at the banquet, including the ambassadors
from other Hellenic states, were not less than two hundred. And so it seems that among all
these I was conspicuous, not by my silence, but by joining in the singing--for Demosthenes
says so, who was not there himself, and presents no witness from among those who were.
*1. Dem. Philippic 3 128
[2.163] Who would have noticed me, unless I was a sort of precentor and led the chorus?
Therefore if I was silent, your charge is false; but if, with our fatherland safe and no
harm done to my fellow citizens, I joined the other ambassadors in singing the paean when
the god was being magnified and the Athenians in no wise dishonored, I was doing a pious
act and no wrong, and I should justly be acquitted. Am I, forsooth, because of this to be
considered as a man who knows no pity, but you a saint, you, the accuser of men who have
shared your bread and cup?
[2.164] But you have also reproached me with inconsistency in my political action, in
that I have served as ambassador to Philip, when I had previously been summoning the
Greeks to oppose him.[1] And yet, if you choose, you may bring this charge against the
rest of the Athenian people as a body. You, gentlemen, once fought the Lacedaemonians, and
then after their misfortune at Leuctra you aided the same people. You once restored Theban
exiles to their country, and again you fought against them at Mantineia. You fought
against Themison and the Eretrians, and again you saved them. And you have before now
treated countless others of the Hellenes in the same way. For in order to attain the
highest good the individual, and the state as well, is obliged to change front with
changing circumstances.
*1. See Dem. Philippic 3 9 ff.
[2.165] But what is the good counsellor to do? Is he not to give the state the counsel
that is best in view of each present situation? And what shall the rascally accuser say?
Is he not to conceal the occasion and condemn the act? And the born traitor--how shall we
recognize him? Will he not imitate you, Demosthenes, in his treatment of those whom chance
throws in his way and who have trusted him? Will he not take pay for writing speeches for
them to deliver in the courts, and then reveal the contents of these speeches to their
opponents?[1] You wrote a speech for the banker Phormion and were paid for it: this speech
you communicated to Apollodorus, who was bringing a capital charge against Phormion.
*1. Cp. Aeschin. Against Ctesiphon 173.
[2.166] You entered a happy home, that of Aristarchus the son of Moschus; you ruined
it. You received three talents from Aristarchus in trust as he was on the point of going
into exile;1 you cheated him out of the money that was to have aided him in his fight, and
were not ashamed of the reputation to which you laid claim, that of being a wooer of the
young man's bodily charms--an absurd story, of course, for genuine love has no place for
rascality. That conduct, and conduct like that, defines the traitor.
*1. The occasion was the murder of Nicodemus by Aristarchus. See Aeschin. 2.148,
note.
[2.167] But he spoke, I believe, about service in the field, and named me "the
fine soldier." But I think, in view of my present peril rather than of his slander, I
may without offence speak of these matters also. For where, or when, or to whom, shall I
speak of them, if I led this day go by? As soon as I passed out of boyhood I became one of
the frontier guards of this land for two years.[1] As witnesses to this statement, I will
call my fellow cadets and our officers.
*1. the young Athenian citizen, coming of legal age at eighteen, was required to
serve two years in the cadet corps, stationed the first year at the Peiraeus, and on
frontier posts the second.
[2.168] My first experience in the field was in what is called "division
service,"[1] when I was with the other men of my age and the mercenary troops of
Alcibiades, who convoyed the provision train to Phleius. We fell into danger near the
place known as the Nemean ravine, and I so fought as to win the praise of my officers.[2]
I also served on the other expeditions in succession, whether we were called out by
age-groups or by divisions.
*1. When citizens were called out for military service, if it was not necessary
to call the whole body of reserves, the men of some specified age were called. e.g. all
between the ages of twenty and thirty, or twenty and forty (cp. Aeschin. 2.133). Since the
names of the men of a given age were kept in the register under the name of the Archon
Eponymos in whose year they came of age, such a levy was called strateia en tois
epônumois. If only a part of such an age-group was called out, it was called a division
levy (strateia en tois meresin).
*2. In 363 b.c. See Xen. Hell. 7.2.17 ff.
[2.169] I fought in the battle of Mantineia, not without honour to myself or credit to
the city. I took part in the expeditions to Euboea,[1] and at the battle of Tamynae [2] as
a member of the picked corps I so bore myself in danger that I received a wreath of honour
then and there, and another at the hands of the people on my arrival home; for I brought
the news of the Athenian victory, and Temenides, taxiarch [3] of the tribe Pandionis, who
was despatched with me from camp, told here how I had borne myself in the face of the
danger that befell us.
*1. In 357 and 349/8.
*2. The critical engagement of the second of the expeditions to Euboea.
*3. Each of the ten taxiarchs commanded the hoplites of a single tribe.
[2.170] But to prove that I am speaking the truth, please take this decree, and call
Temenides and those who were my comrades in the expedition in the service of the city, and
call Phocion, the general, not yet to plead for me,[1] if it please the jury, but as a
witness who cannot speak falsely without exposing himself to the libellous attacks of my
prosecutor.
Decree
Testimony
*1. Phocion will later he called to support the prayer of the defence for
acquittal.
[2.171] Since, then, it was I who brought you the first news of the victory of the city
and the success of your sons, I ask of you this as my first reward, the saving of my life.
For I am not a hater of the democracy, as my accuser asserts, but a hater of wickedness;
and I am not one who forbids your "imitating the forefathers" of Demosthenes
[1]--for he has none--but one who calls upon you to emulate those policies which are noble
and salutary to the state. Those policies I will now review somewhat more specifically,
beginning with early times.
*1. See Dem. Philippic 3 16.
[2.172] In former days, after the battle of Salamis, our city stood in high repute, and
although our walls had been thrown down by the barbarians, yet so long as we had peace
with the Lacedaemonians we preserved our democratic form of government.[1]But when certain
men had stirred up trouble and finally caused us to become involved in war with the
Lacedaemonians, then, after we had suffered and inflicted many losses, Miltiades, the son
of Cimon, who was proxenus [2] of the Lacedaemonians, negotiated with them, and we made a
truce for fifty years, and kept it thirteen years.[3]
*1. Aeschines has taken the historical review which he gives in Aeschin.
2.172-176 from the speech of Andocides, On the Peace with the Lacedaemonians (Andoc. 3.3
ff.) , condensing, and changing the phraseology at will, and changing the application of
the facts which he cites. This sketch as given by Andocides is characterized by Eduard
Meyer (Forschungen zur Alten Geschichte, 2.132 ff.) as a caricature of the actual course
of events, valuable only as a convincing proof of the untrustworthiness of oral tradition,
and of the rapidity and certainty with which confusion and error as to historical facts
develop, even in the mind of a contemporary who has had a prominent part in the events.
*2. The proxenus was a citizen who was employed by a foreign state to represent
its interests in his own state.
*3. This was in fact a five years' truce negotiated by Cimon, the son of
Miltiades, in 45b c. The truce lasted, not thirteen years, but less than five. The
fortification of the Peiraeus belongs more than a quarter of a century earlier.
[2.173] During this period we fortified the Peiraeus and built the north wall; we added
one hundred new triremes to our fleet; we also equipped three hundred cavalrymen and
bought three hundred Scythians;[1] and we held the democratic constitution unshaken.But
meanwhile men who were neither free by birth nor of fit character had intruded into our
body politic, and finally we became involved in war again with the Lacedaemonians, this
time because of the Aeginetans.[2]
*1. A corps of bowmen, Scythian slaves, owned by the state and used as city
police.
*2. The war with Aegina ended before the above-mentioned truce began.
[2.174] In this war we received no small injury, and became desirous of peace. We
therefore sent Andocides and other ambassadors to the Lacedaemonians and negotiated a
peace, which we kept for thirty years.[1] This peace brought the democracy to the height
of its prosperity. For we deposited on the Acropolis a thousand talents of coined money we
built one hundred additional triremes, and constructed dockyards; we formed a corps of
twelve hundred cavalry and a new force of as many bowmen, and the southern long wall was
built; and no man undertook to overthrow the democratic constitution.
*1. The thirty years' peace was in fact made in 446/5, and was kept only fifteen
years.
[2.175] But again we were persuaded to go to war, now because of the Megarians. [1]
Having given up our land to be ravaged, and suffering great privations, we longed for
peace, and finally concluded it through Nicias, the son of Niceratus.[2] In the period
that followed we again deposited treasure in the Acropolis, seven thousand talents, thanks
to this peace, and we acquired triremes, seaworthy and fully equipped, no fewer than three
hundred in number; a yearly tribute of more than twelve hundred talents came in to us; we
held the Chersonese, Naxos, and Euboea, and in these years we sent out a host of colonies.
*1. The beginning of the Peloponnesian war, 431 b.c.
*2. The "Peace of Nicias" was negotiated in 421, but its terms were
only partially fulfilled from the beginning, and very soon the war was in full operation
again. Andocides places in this period, which he falsely assumes to be one of peace,
events that belong to the Periclean period.
[2.176] Though the blessings we were enjoying were so great, we again brought war
against the Lacedaemonians, persuaded by the Argives;[1] and at last, in consequence of
the eagerness of our public men for war, we sank so low as to see a Spartan garrison in
our city, and the Four Hundred, and the impious Thirty;[2] and it was not the making of
peace that caused this,[3] but we were forced by orders laid upon us. But when again a
moderate government had been established, and the exiled democracy had come back from
Phyle,[4] with Archinus and Thrasybulus as the leaders of the popular party, we took the
solemn oath with one another "to forgive and forget" an act which, in the
judgment of all men, won for our state the reputation of the highest wisdom.
*1. Athens entered into alliance with Argos, Mantineia, and Elis in 420. This
immediately reopened the war with the Lacedaemonians.
*2. The oligarchy of the Four Hundred was the result of the revolution of 411
b.c. The rule of the Thirty Tyrants followed the surrender of the city at the close of the
Peloponnesian war. The Thirty were supported by a Spartan garrison (404-403).
*3. The setting up of the Thirty was dictated by Sparta.
*4. Phyle, a post on the Boeotian frontier, was the rallying point of the band
of exiles who began the movement for the expulsion of the Thirty
[2.177] The democracy then took on new life and vigour. But now men who have been
illegally registered as citizens, constantly attaching to themselves what ever element in
the city is corrupt, and following a policy of war after war, in peace ever prophesying
danger, and so working on ambitious and over excitable minds, yet when war comes never
touching arms themselves, but getting into office as auditors and naval commissioners--men
whose mistresses are the mothers of their offspring, and whose slanderous tongues ought to
disfranchise them--these men are bringing the state into extreme peril, fostering the name
of democracy, not by their character, but by their flatteries, trying to put an end to the
peace, wherein lies the safety of the democracy, and in every way fomenting war, the
destroyer of popular government.
[2.178] These are the men who now are making a concerted attack on me; they say that
Philip bought the peace, that he overreached us at every point in the articles of
agreement, and that the peace which he contrived for his own interests, he himself has
violated. And they put me on trial, not as an ambassador, but as a surety for Philip and
the peace; the man who had nothing but words under his control they call to account for
deeds--deeds that existed only in their own imagination. And the very man whom I exhibit
to you as my eulogist in the public decrees, I have found as my accuser in the court-room.
And although I was but one of ten ambassadors, I alone am made to give account.
[2.179] To plead with you in my behalf are present my father, whom I beg of you not to
rob of the hopes of his old age; my brothers, who would have no desire for life if I
should be torn from them; my connections by marriage; and these little children, who do
not yet realize their danger, but are to be pitied if disaster fall on us. For them I beg
and beseech you to take earnest thought, and not to give them over into the hands of our
enemies, or of a creature who is no man--no better in spirit than a woman.
[2.180] And first of all I pray and beseech the gods to save me, and then I beseech
you, who hold the verdict in your hands, before whom I have defended myself against every
one of the accusations, to the best of my recollection; I beg you to save me, and not give
me over to the hands of the rhetorician and the Scythian. You who are fathers of children
or have younger brother's whom you hold dear, remember that to me they are indebted for a
warning which they will not forget, admonished to live chastely through my prosecution of
Timarchus.
[2.181] And all the rest of you, toward whom I have conducted myself without offence,
in fortune a plain citizen, a decent man like any one of you, and the only man who in the
strife of politics has refused to join in conspiracy against you, upon you I call to save
me. With all loyalty I have served the city as her ambassador, alone subjected to the
clamour of the slanderers, which before now many a man conspicuously brave in war has not
had the courage to face; for it is not death that men dread, but a dishonoured end.
[2.182] Is he not indeed to be pitied who must look into the sneering face of an enemy,
and hear with his ears his insults? But nevertheless I have taken the risk, I have exposed
my body to the peril. Among you I grew up, your ways have been my ways. No home of yours
is the worse for my pleasures; no man has been deprived of his fatherland by accusation of
mine at any revision of the citizen-lists, nor has come into peril when rendering account
of his administration of an office.
[2.183] A word more and I have done. One thing was in my power, fellow citizens: to do
you no wrong. But to be free from accusation, that was a thing which depended upon
fortune, and fortune cast my lot with a slanderer, a barbarian, who cared not for
sacrifices nor libations nor the breaking of bread together; nay, to frighten all who in
time to come might oppose him, he has fabricated a false charge against us and come in
here. If, therefore, you are willing to save those who have laboured together with you for
peace and for your security, the common good will find champions in abundance, ready to
face danger in your behalf.
[2.184] To endorse my plea I now call Eubulus as a representative of the statesmen and
all honourable citizens, and Phocion as a representative of the generals, preeminent also
among us all as a man of upright character. From among my friends and associates I call
Nausicles, and all the others with whom I have associated and whose pursuits I have
shared. My speech is finished. This my body I, and the law, now commit to your hands.
