Chapter 6

{31} Such was Philip's first act of fraud, during the time of the Embassy, and the first instance of venality on the part of these wicked men; and over this I confess that then and now and always I have been and am at war and at variance with them. Now observe, immediately after this, a second and even greater piece of villainy. {32} As soon as Philip had sworn to the Peace, after first gaining possession of Thrace because these men did not obey my decree, he obtained from them--again by purchase--the postponement of our departure from Macedonia, until all should be in readiness for his campaign against the Phocians; in order that, instead of our bringing home a report of his intentions and his preparations for the march, which would make you set out and sail round to Thermopylae with your war-ships as you did before,[n] you might only hear our report of the facts when he was already on this side of Thermopylae, and you could do nothing. {33} And Philip was beset with such fear and such a weight of anxiety, lest in spite of his occupation of these places, his object should slip from his grasp, if, before the Phocians were destroyed, you resolved to assist them, that he hired this despicable creature, not now in company with his colleagues, but by himself alone, to make to you a statement and a report of such a character that owing to them all was lost. {34} But I request and entreat you, men of Athens, to remember throughout this whole trial, that, had Aeschines made no accusation that was not included in the indictment, I too would not have said a word that did not bear upon it; but since he has had recourse to all kinds of imputation and slander at once, I am compelled also to give a brief answer to each group of charges. {35} What then were the statements uttered by him that day, in consequence of which all was lost? 'You must not be perturbed,' he said, 'at Philip's having crossed to this side of Thermopylae; for you will get everything that you desire, if you remain quiet; and within two or three days you will hear that he has become the friend of those whose enemy he was, and the enemy of those whose friend he was, when he first came. For,' said he, 'it is not phrases that confirm friendships' (a finely sententious expression!) 'but identity of interest; and it is to the interest of Philip and of the Phocians and of yourselves alike, to be rid of the heartless and overbearing demeanour of the Thebans.' {36} To these statements some gave a ready ear, in consequence of the tacit ill-feeling towards the Thebans at the time. What then followed--and not after a long interval, but immediately? The Phocians were overthrown; their cities were razed to the ground; you, who had believed Aeschines and remained inactive, were soon afterwards bringing in your effects from the country; while Aeschines received his gold; and besides all this, the city reaped the ill-will of the Thebans and Thessalians, while their gratitude for what had been done went to Philip. {37} To prove that this is so, (_to the clerk_) read me both the decree of Callisthenes,[n] and Philip's letter. (_To the jury_.) These two documents together will make all the facts plain. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

{38} [_The decree of Callisthenes is read_.]

Were these the hopes, on the strength of which you made the Peace? Was this what this hireling promised you? {39} (_To the clerk_.) Now read the letter which Philip sent after this.

[_Philip's letter is read_.]

{40} You hear how obviously, in this letter sent to you, Philip is addressing definite information to his own allies. 'I have done these things,' he tells them, 'against the will of the Athenians, and to their annoyance; and so, men of Thebes and Thessaly, if you are wise, you will regard them as enemies, and will trust me.' He does not write in those actual terms, but that is what he intends to indicate. By these means he so carried them away, that they did not foresee or realize any of the consequences, but allowed him to get everything into his own power: and that is why, poor men, they have experienced their present calamities. {41} But the man who helped him to create this confidence, who co-operated with him, who brought home that false report and deluded you, he it is who now bewails the sufferings of the Thebans and enlarges upon their piteousness--he, who is himself the cause both of these and of the misery in Phocis, and of all the other evils which the Hellenes have endured. Yes, it is evident that you are pained at what has come to pass, Aeschines, and that you are sorry for the Thebans, when you have property in Boeotia[n] and are farming the land that was theirs; and that I rejoice at it--I, whose surrender was immediately demanded by the author of the disaster! {42} But I have digressed into subjects of which it will perhaps be more convenient to speak presently. I will return to the proofs which show that it is the crimes of these men that are the cause of our condition to-day.

For when you had been deceived by Philip, through the agency of these men, who while serving as ambassadors had sold themselves and made a report in which there was not a word of truth--when the unhappy Phocians had been deceived and their cities annihilated--what followed? {43} The despicable Thessalians and the slow-witted Thebans regarded Philip as their friend, their benefactor, their saviour. Philip was their all-in-all. They would not even listen to the voice of any one who wished to express a different opinion. You yourselves, though you viewed what had been done with suspicion and vexation, nevertheless kept the Peace; for there was nothing else that you could have done. And the other Hellenes, who, like yourselves, had been deluded and disappointed of their hopes,[n] also kept the Peace, and gladly;[n] since in a sense they also were remotely aimed at by the war. {44} For when Philip was going about and subduing the Illyrians and Triballi and some of the Hellenes as well, and bringing many large forces into his own power, and when some of the members of the several States were taking advantage of the Peace to travel to Macedonia, and were being corrupted--Aeschines among them--at such a time all of those whom Philip had in view in thus making his preparations were really being attacked by him. {45} Whether they failed to realize it is another question, which does not concern me. For I was continually uttering warnings and protests, both in your midst and wherever I was sent. But the cities were stricken with disease: those who were engaged in political and practical affairs were taking bribes and being corrupted by the hope of money; while the mass of private citizens either showed no foresight, or else were caught by the bait of ease and leisure from day to day; and all alike had fallen victims to some such delusive fancy, as that the danger would come upon every one but themselves, and that through the perils of others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased. {46} And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned for their great and ill-timed indifference by the loss of their freedom, while the leaders in affairs, who fancied that they were selling everything except themselves, have realized that they had sold themselves first of all. For instead of being called friends and guest-friends, as they were called at the time when they were taking their bribes, they now hear themselves called flatterers, and god-forsaken, and all the other names that they deserve. {47} For no one, men of Athens, spends his money out of a desire to benefit the traitor; nor, when once he has secured the object for which he bargains, does he employ the traitor to advise him with regard to other objects: if it were so, nothing could be happier than a traitor. But it is not so, of course. Far from it! When the aspirant after dominion has gained his object, he is also the master of those who have sold it to him: and because then he knows their villainy, he then hates and mistrusts them, and covers them with insults. {48} For observe--for even if the time of the events is past, the time for realizing truths like these is ever present to wise men. Lasthenes[n] was called his 'friend'; but only until he had betrayed Olynthus. And Timolaus;[n] but only until he had destroyed Thebes. And Eudicus and Simus[n] of Larissa; but only until they had put Thessaly in Philip's power. And now, persecuted as they are, and insulted, and subjected to every kind of misery, the whole inhabited world has become filled with such men. And what of Aristratus[n] at Sicyon? what of Perillus[n] at Megara? Are they not outcasts? {49} From these instances one can see very clearly, that it is he who best protects his own country and speaks most constantly against such men, that secures for traitors and hirelings like yourselves, Aeschines, the continuance of your opportunities for taking bribes. It is the majority of those who are here, those who resist your will, that you must thank for the fact that you live and draw your pay; for, left to yourselves, you would long ago have perished.

{50} There is still much that I might say about the transactions of that time, but I think that even what I have said is more than enough. The blame rests with Aeschines, who has drenched me with the stale dregs[n] of his own villainy and crime, from which I was compelled to clear myself in the eyes of those who are too young to remember the events; though perhaps you who knew, even before I said a single word, of Aeschines' service as a hireling, may have felt some annoyance as you listened. {51} He calls it, forsooth, 'friendship' and 'guest-friendship'; and somewhere in his speech just now he used the expression, 'the man who casts in my teeth my guest-friendship with Alexander.' _I_ cast in your teeth your guest-friendship with Alexander? How did you acquire it? How came you to be thought worthy of it? Never would I call you the guest-friend of Philip or the friend of Alexander--I am not so insane--unless you are to call harvesters and other hired servants the friends and guest-friends of those who have hired them. [But that is not the case, of course. Far from it!] {52} Nay, I call you the hireling, formerly of Philip, and now of Alexander, and so do all who are present. If you disbelieve me, ask them--or rather I will ask them for you. Men of Athens, do you think of Aeschines as the hireling or as the guest-friend of Alexander? You hear what they say.

{53} I now wish, without more delay, to make my defence upon the indictment itself, and to go through my past acts, in order that Aeschines may hear (though he knows them well) the grounds on which I claim to have a right both to the gifts which the Council have proposed, and even to far greater than these. (_To the clerk_.) Now take the indictment and read it.

{54, 55} [The indictment is read.]

{56} These, men of Athens, are the points in the resolution which the prosecutor assails; and these very points will, I think, afford me my first means of proving to you that the defence which I am about to offer is an absolutely fair one. For I will take the points of the indictment in the very same order as the prosecutor: I will speak of each in succession, and will knowingly pass over nothing. {57} Any decision upon the statement that I 'consistently do and say what is best for the People, and am eager to do whatever good I can', and upon the proposal to vote me thanks for this, depends, I consider, upon my past political career: for it is by an investigation of my career that either the truth and the propriety, or else the falsehood, of these statements which Ctesiphon has made about me will be discovered. {58} Again, the proposal to crown me, without the addition of the clause 'when he has submitted to his examination', and the order to proclaim the award of the crown in the theatre, must, I imagine, stand or fall with my political career; for the question is whether I deserve the crown and the proclamation before my fellow countrymen or not. At the same time I consider myself further bound to point out to you the laws under which the defendant's proposal could be made. In this honest and straightforward manner, men of Athens, I have determined to make my defence; and now I will proceed to speak of my past actions themselves. {59} And let no one imagine that I am detaching my argument from its connexion with the indictment, if I break into a discussion of international transactions. For it is the prosecutor who, by assailing the clause of the decree which states that I do and say what is best, and by indicting it as false, has rendered the discussion of my whole political career essentially germane to the indictment; and further, out of the many careers which public life offers, it was the department of international affairs that I chose; so that I have a right to derive my proofs also from that department.

{60} I will pass over all that Philip snatched from us and secured, in the days before I took part in public life as an orator. None of these losses, I imagine, has anything to do with me. But I will recall to you, and will render you an account of all that, from the day when I entered upon this career, he was _prevented_ from taking, when I have made one remark. {61} Philip, men of Athens, had a great advantage in his favour. For in the midst of the Hellenic peoples--and not of some only, but of all alike--there had sprung up a crop of traitors--corrupt, god-forsaken men--more numerous than they have ever been within the memory of man. These he took to help and co-operate with him; and great as the mutual ill-will and dissensions of the Hellenes already were, he rendered them even worse, by deceiving some, making presents to others, and corrupting others in every way; and at a time when all had in reality but one interest--to prevent his becoming powerful--he divided them into a number of factions. {62} All the Hellenes then being in this condition, still ignorant of the growing and accumulating evil, you have to ask yourselves, men of Athens, what policy and action it was fitting for the city to choose, and to hold me responsible for this; for the person who assumed that responsibility in the State was myself. {63} Should she, Aeschines, have sacrificed her pride and her own dignity? Should she have joined the ranks of the Thessalians and Dolopes,[n] and helped Philip to acquire the empire of Hellas, cancelling thereby the noble and righteous deeds of our forefathers? Or, if she should not have done this (for it would have been in very truth an atrocious thing), should she have looked on, while all that she saw would happen, if no one prevented it--all that she realized, it seems, at a distance--was actually taking place? {64} Nay, I should be glad to ask to-day the severest critic of my actions, which party he would have desired the city to join--the party which shares the responsibility for the misery and disgrace which has fallen upon the Hellenes (the party of the Thessalians and their supporters, one may call it), or the party which looked on while these calamities were taking place, in the hope of gaining some advantage for themselves--in which we should place the Arcadians and Messenians and Argives. {65} But even of these, many--nay, all--have in the end fared worse than we. For if Philip had departed immediately after his victory, and gone his way; if afterwards he had remained at peace, and had given no trouble whatever to any of his own allies or of the other Hellenes; then there would have been some ground for blaming and accusing those who had opposed his plans. But if he has stripped them all alike of their dignity, their paramountcy, and their independence--nay, even of their free constitutions,[n] wherever he could do so--can it be denied that the policy which you adopted on my advice was the most glorious policy possible?

{66} But I return to my former point. What was it fitting for the city to do, Aeschines, when she saw Philip establishing for himself a despotic sway over the Hellenes? What language should have been used, what measures proposed, by the adviser of the people at Athens (for that it was at Athens makes the utmost difference), when I knew that from the very first, up to the day when I myself ascended the platform, my country had always contended for pre-eminence, honour, and glory, and in the cause of honour, and for the interests of all, had sacrificed more money and lives than any other Hellenic people had spent for their private ends: {67} when I saw that Philip himself, with whom our conflict lay, for the sake of empire and absolute power, had had his eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken, his hand and his leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body that Fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he might live in honour and glory? {68} And surely no one would dare to say that it was fitting that in one bred at Pella, a place then inglorious and insignificant, there should have grown up so lofty a spirit that he aspired after the empire of Hellas, and conceived such a project in his mind; but that in you, who are Athenians, and who day by day in all that you hear and see behold the memorials of the gallantry of your forefathers, such baseness should be found, that you would yield up your liberty to Philip by your own deliberate offer and deed. {69} No man would say this. One alternative remained, and that, one which you were bound to take--that of a righteous resistance to the whole course of action by which he was doing you injury. You acted thus from the first, quite rightly and properly; while I helped by my proposals and advice during the time of my political activity, and I do not deny it. But what ought I to have done? For the time has come to ask you this, Aeschines, and to dismiss everything else. {70} Amphipolis, Pydna, Poteidaea, Halonnesus--all are blotted from my memory. As for Serrhium, Doriscus, the sack of Peparethus, and all the other injuries inflicted upon the city, I renounce all knowledge of their ever having happened--though you actually said that _I_ involved my countrymen in hostility by talking of these things, when the decrees which deal with them were the work of Eubulus and Aristophon[n] and Diopeithes,[n] and not mine at all--so glibly do you assert anything that suits your purpose! {71} But of this too I say nothing at present. I only ask you whether Philip, who was appropriating Euboea,[n] and establishing it as a stronghold to command Attica; who was making an attempt upon Megara, seizing Oreus, razing the walls of Porthmus, setting up Philistides as tyrant at Oreus and Cleitarchus at Eretria, bringing the Hellespont into his own power, besieging Byzantium, destroying some of the cities of Hellas, and restoring his exiled friends to others--whether he, I say, in acting thus, was guilty of wrong, violating the truce and breaking the Peace, or not? Was it fit that one of the Hellenes should arise to prevent it, or not? {72} If it was not fit--if it was fit that Hellas should become like the Mysian booty[n] in the proverb before men's eyes, while the Athenians had life and being, then I have lost my labour in speaking upon this theme, and the city has lost its labour in obeying me: then let everything that has been done be counted for a crime and a blunder, and those my own! But if it was right that one should arise to prevent it, for whom could the task be more fitting than for the people of Athens? That then, was the aim of _my_ policy; and when I saw Philip reducing all mankind to servitude, I opposed him, and without ceasing warned and exhorted you to make no surrender.

{73} But the Peace, Aeschines, was in reality broken by Philip, when he seized the corn-ships, not by Athens. (_To the clerk_.) Bring the decrees themselves, and the letter of Philip, and read them in order. (_To the jury_.) For they will make it clear who is responsible, and for what.

{74} [_A decree is read_.]

{75} This decree then was proposed by Eubulus, not by me; and the next by Aristophon; he is followed first by Hegesippus, and he by Aristophon again, and then by Philocrates, then by Cephisophon, and then by all of them. But I proposed no decree upon this subject. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_Decrees are read_.]

{76} As then I point to these decrees, so, Aeschines, do you point to a decree of any kind, proposed by me, which makes me responsible for the war. You cannot do so: for had you been able, there is nothing which you would sooner have produced. Indeed, even Philip himself makes no charge against me as regards the war, though he complains of others. (_To the clerk_.) Read Philip's letter itself.

{77, 78} [_Philip's letter is read_.]

{79} In this letter he has nowhere mentioned the name of Demosthenes, nor made any charge against me. Why is it then that, though he complains of others, he has not mentioned my own actions? Because, if he had written anything about me, he must have mentioned his own acts of wrong; for it was these acts upon which I kept my grip, and these which I opposed. First of all, when he was trying to steal into the Peloponnese, I proposed the embassy to the Peloponnese;[n] then, when he was grasping at Euboea, the embassy to Euboea;[n] then the expedition--not an embassy any more--to Oreus,[n] and that to Eretria, when he had established tyrants in those cities. {80} After that I dispatched all the naval expeditions, in the course of which the Chersonese and Byzantium and all our allies were saved. In consequence of this, the noblest rewards at the hands of those who had benefited by your action became yours--votes of thanks, glory, honours, crowns, gratitude; while of the victims of his aggression, those who followed your advice at the time secured their own deliverance, and those who neglected it had the memory of your warnings constantly in their minds, and regarded you not merely as their well-wishers, but as men of wisdom and prophetic insight; for all that you foretold has come to pass. {81} And further, that Philistides would have given a large sum to retain Oreus, and Cleitarchus to retain Eretria, and Philip himself, to be able to count upon the use of these places against you, and to escape all exposure of his other proceedings and all investigation, by any one in any place, of his wrongful acts--all this is not unknown to any one, least of all to you, Aeschines. {82} For the envoys sent at that time by Cleitarchus and Philistides lodged at your house, when they came here, and you acted as their patron.[n] Though the city rejected them, as enemies whose proposals were neither just nor expedient, to you they were friends. None of their attempts succeeded, slander me though you may, when you assert that I say nothing when I receive money, but cry out when I spend it. That, certainly, is not _your_ way: for you cry out with money in your hands, and will never cease, unless those present cause you to do so by taking away your civil rights[n] to-day. {83} Now on that occasion, gentlemen, you crowned me for my conduct. Aristonicus proposed a decree whose very syllables were identical with those of Ctesiphon's present proposal; the crown was proclaimed in the theatre; and this was already the second proclamation[n] in my honour: and yet Aeschines, though he was there, neither opposed the decree, nor indicted the mover. (_To the clerk_.) Take this decree also and read it.

{84} [_The decree of Aristonicus is read_.]