f ^O'Jl/^'JJ- '.i/< r. Λ 10 '^fl^liSN* _ μ ^. DEMOSTHENES ON THE CROWN Published by JAMES THORNTON, OXFORD. London: SIMP KIN, MARSHALL, & Co. THE ORATION OF DEMOSTHENES Μ ON THE CROWN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDICES BY FRANCIS P.. SIMPSON, B.'A. ' ^ BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD JAMES THORNTON, HIGH STREET 1882 OXFORD: ΙΥ Ε. PICKAED HALL, M.A., AND J. H. STACY, PBINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. aJ^ α PREFACE. The present text follows that of Baiter and Sauppe (Zurich, 1 841), which is prescribed by the Board of Studies at Oxford. A few misprints have been corrected : in § 129 τω ΚαλαμίτΎ] ηρωί has been, on excellent authority, altered to τω καλαμίτΎΐ'Ήρωί, and in several places the punctuation has been changed ; but in every case warning of the change is given in the notes. The Zurich editors base their edition on the Parisian MS. known as Σ. This is admittedly the best MS. of Demo- sthenes ; but, that it should not be considered exclusively correct and infallible, has been shown by Shilleto, among others, in his critical annotations to the De Falsa Legatione. In the present speech it often omits words and phrases, found in most other MSS., which, so far as internal evidence goes, are genuine, that is to say, are apposite, and sometimes necessary, to the sense. Hence the readings of Dindorf (Leipzig, 1 874), who takes a view rather different from that of the Zurich editors, and perhaps juster, of the authority of Σ, have been stated in the notes throughout the speech ; and other variants, which seemed important or instructive, have been added. References, in the notes, to other speeches of Demosthenes are given by the sections and pages of the same edition of Dindorf, which are those generally adopted. In the case of the De Falsa Legatione I have, for the sake of con- venience, given the sections of Shilleto, of course retaining the page. 45S544 vi PREFACE. Several of the notes — which I have tried to make as concise as possible — may appear unnecessary to a scholar; but they have been inserted for the practical reason that the obstacles they should remove have been felt by some of the many pupils with whom I have read this speech. The main difficulty which Demosthenes presents to the student lies in the close logical connection of his argu- ments ; and most commentaries consist largely of transla- tion or paraphrase. Paraphrase is dangerous, as it may lead a novice to a belief that he quite understands a piece of Latin or Greek, when he is some way from doing so. I have, therefore, taken the bull by the horns, and have given a continuous rendering, as close as I could decently make it. Nobody, I trust, will rest satisfied with this, but will by all means improve on it. as a translation. Its aim is purely commentatorial — to save its weight in notes. It is intended to show what Demosthenes said, but not how well he said it. And, I may say, I believe that every lecturer and tutor in Oxford will admit that an under- graduate, or sixth-form boy, cannot get full value out of reading the De Corona without such help. In the first part of the Introduction will be found a sketch of Athenian history, as far as is necessary for the thorough understanding of this Oration. In the second portion, a precis of the oration of Aeschines, as well as of that of Demosthenes, is prefixed to a brief analysis of the two speeches considered as an attack and a defence. To read Demosthenes without knowing the circumstances under which he spoke, and the quality of his antagonists, is to miss half the interest ; for above all things that are remark- able in him as an orator are his mastery of a situation and the breadth and intensity of his reasoning. A further relief has been given to the notes by collecting PREFACE. vii the various uses of the more notable words and phrases in an Index (II), where I hope they will be found more con- cisely and more profitably exhibited than if they had appeared in detached portions. This index is also in- tended to be tolerably complete. 'Dominantia verba,' which occur often without any definable variation of meaning, I have, as a rule, only entered once or twice ; but I have departed from this rule pretty frequently where a word, though common, might help as a key to a passage of interest. In this way I trust that Index II will give a fair view of the vocabulary employed by Demosthenes in this speech. For purposes of composition this should be useful ; for the vocabulary is the half of a style. Oxford, i88i. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface ....... vi Introduction : — I. Athens from the close of the Peloponnesian War to Chaeronea ..... xi II. The Trial ...... xxxv Text and Notes ...... 2—232 Translation ...... 3—233 Index I. (Names and Places) .... 235 Index II. (Words and Phrases) .... 240 CORRIGENDA. P^ge 57 > line 5 from bottom, de/e See . . . npvravcis » 79 Μ 2 „ „ >^ 345 ^^«^355 „ 125 „ 7 „ ,, for \.Q. read οτ, „ 131 „ II „ ioY>,for mezxis read men « 135 »» 3 .. Μ yi'?' that ^(?Λί/ because „ Μ „ 8 „ „ for Άθηνι^σιν read Άθήνησιν „ „ „ 14 „ „ for ΐΓθλιτ€ύη read rroKtrevri bottom, ^r 297 read 291 top, for βραδιτΓητα5 read βραδύτητα$ bottom, inseri by defore similar top, for or read nor that I bottom, afer capricious, add For νομίμοκ, cf. c. Aristocr. § 70, p. 643• top, for your read their „ for arrvivari. read απνευστί, bottom, yi>r patriotic read statesmanlike 150 . , 8 182 , . 15 193 , ' 15 199 V . 9 201 „ , 6 209 ,. . 14 224 , . 4 225 , > 10 INTRODUCTION. Athens from the Close of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Chaeronea. The growth of the Athenian empire was an outcome of that coaHtion of the Greek states which had been caused by the danger of invasion from the East. Its fall meant the disintegration of Greece, and the return of the diiferent Greek communities to their old jealousies, and their old policies of selfish league or isolation. There was left, however, at Athens, the tradition of a hundred years of gallant deeds, the memory of a preeminence fairly acquired and fairly held, and a sentiment which connected Athe- nian hegemony with the championship of Greece against the foreigner — a sentiment which lived, though it burned low, for sixty years, until it was fanned into flame once more by Demosthenes, and, when then it was extinguished, Greek liberty was dead. The history of Hellas, as a whole, from the close of the Pelo- ponnesian war to the beginning of the domination of Macedon, is a tangled skein. It is necessary, however, in order to understand the Speech on the Crown, only to trace the thread that belongs to Athens, discovering her contact with the changing combinations and transient supremacies, among the Hellenic states, which mark this period. The autocracy of Sparia, and the rise and decline of Thebes. Athens recovered her democracy in the memorable year 403 B.C. But her walls were demolished, her fleet destroyed, her subjects and allies gone from her, her citizens thinned in number by misery, war, and faction ; and forty years elapsed before she could venture to play a leading part in Hellenic afl"airs. In these, at first, Sparta was naturally predominant. All the cities of the old Ionian confederacy were held in her grip by means Xll INTRODUCTION, of Laconising oligarchs and Lacedaemonian governors; and the successes of Agesilaus in Asia Minor brought her both prestige and plunder. But growing hatred of the arrogance of Spartan rule, aided by the influence of Persian gold, shrewdly distributed about the Greek world, soon caused an eruption. By 394 b.c., Thebes, Corinth, and Argos were in league against Lacedaemon and Phocis, and hostilities had begun. Athens, joining the league, took an active share. Athenian forces were at Haliartus when King Pausanias arrived too late to save Lysander, were despatched subsequently to Corinth, and fought against Agesilaus at Coronea ; later, sallying from Corinth, the light troops of the Athenian Iphicrates annihilated a whole μόρα of Spartan hoplites. The maritime power of Lacedaemon, and her influence on the Aegaean, were lost after the defeat sustained at Cnidos. Conon, too, coming home with the Persian fleet, obtained from Pharnabazus permission and help to rebuild the Long Walls and re-fortify the Piraeus : and Athenian squadrons under Thrasybulus and Iphicrates did some- thing to regain the position of Athens on the Hellespont. At last, however, Sparta closed a seven years' war by the dis- graceful compromise with Persia, known as the Peace of Antal- ciDAS (387 B.C.). This act surrendered all the Greek cities in Asia Minor, with Clazomenae and Cyprus, to the Persian king, and allowed him to dictate a general pacification. All the Greek states were to be independent. Athens might keep the small islands, Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros. Thebes lost her command of Boeotia. Sparta, as protector of the peace, backed by a strong alliance, was secured in her hegemony. The bad faith of the Spartans was soon apparent. Beginning in Boeotia, they used every eflbrt of fraud and force to create a ' ring ' of oligarchical governments, closely bound and subservient to themselves; and in this they succeeded. The treacherous seizure and retention of the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes itself in 382 B.C., and the reduction of the cities of the Olynthiac Union in 379 B.C., left them autocrats of Hellas, supported by the despotisms of Persia, Macedon, and Syracuse. Their success was short-lived. It was an outrage to Hellenic sentiment. In the same year (379 b.c) Theban exiles, operating from /. ATHENS 403— 338 B.C. xiii Athens, were' able, by a daring stratagem, to destroy the oligarchy at Thebes, and expel the Lacedaemonian garrison. The new Theban magistracy, led by Pelopidas and Epaminondas, declared war against Sparta, and for seven years received assistance, especially maritime, from Athens, until the Spartans were wholly driven from Boeotia. Offended, however, at the sharp reprisals taken by the Thebans on Thespiae and Plataea, and traditionally jealous of Theban successes, the Athenians at length struck with Sparta the Peace of Callias (371 B.C.), by which Sparta called home all her harmosts and garrisons, and Athens her fleet. From this peace Thebes was excluded. Thus Thebes was left to fight single-handed. A Lacedaemonian army was in Phocis, under king Cleombrotus. But the peace of Callias was not three weeks old, when the genius of Epami- nondas dealt, in his complete victory at Leuctra, a surprising but crushing blow to the military prestige of Sparta. The loss to Sparta was much more than the loss of a battle. The defeated forces, indeed, were allowed to leave Boeotia undis- turbed, owing to the advice of Jason, tyrant of Pherae and tagus ('federal general') of Thessaly (a man remarkable as a proto- type of Philip), whose aid the Thebans had invited ; but all the ascendancy hitherto held by Sparta in northern Greece was divided between Jason and Thebes. The Theban Hegemony dated from Leuctra. Next year Epami- nondas pressed into the Peloponnese at the head of a great army of allies, and invaded Laconia, but was dissuaded, by the vigorous defence of Agesilaus, from persisting in his attempt. His other measures were, perhaps, as disastrous to Sparta as an occupation of the city would have been. On the north, breaking up the old Peloponnesian alliance, he formed all Arcadia into a strong federate whole, meeting in synod at the newly-founded Megalopolis : on the west, he reinstated the long-dispersed Messenians in their old country. Thus broken and hemmed in, the Spartans turned to Athens, formally resigning their claims to primacy ; and were received by her into alliance — a relation which was destined to be permanent. Athens, in order to preserve the balance of power, had, soon XIV INTRODUCTION, after 378 b.c, formed a confederacy, consisting both of Pelopon- nesian states, and, still more largely, of her old maritime allies. She had also augmented her navy, and by her victory over the Lacedaemonian fleet at Naxos (376 b.c.) was once more mistress of the sea. The Thebans, for nine years, continued to increase in power, and their leadership received royal sanction from Persia. Their most important military operations were in Thessaly. These were directed against Alexander of Pherae, a corrupt successor of Jason, and covered about five years, during which the despot received occasional aid from Athens. Finally defeated at the battle of Cynoscephalae (where Pelopidas fell), he became a subject ally of Thebes, and afterwards chiefly distinguished himself by acts of piracy in the Aegaean, on one occasion plundering the Piraeus. Thebes was now paramount in Thessaly, extending in influence as far as Macedonia. The Euboeans, who had taken part in the Anti-Spartan league, sided with Thebes at the beginning of her supremacy, but, later, fell into divisions; and in many cities tyrants started up, who were guided in their political attachments by purely personal motives. One of these, Themison of Eretria, put Oropus into the hands of the Thebans, who delayed to restore the city to Athens, owing to its advantageous position with regard to Euboea. Thebes coveted the possession of that island as the only opening by which she could realise her ambition of becoming a naval power. Some maritime operations against Athens were, indeed, actually begun (363 B.C.) under Epaminondas, with promising success ; but they ceased at his death. In 362 the disturbances that had arisen, some time back, be- tween Elis and Arcadia, in which Mantinea and Sparta had taken the side of the former, seemed to threaten the safety of the new Arcadian confederacy. Epaminondas crossed into the Pelopon- nese to support the Theban party, and met and routed the enemy at Mantinea. He was mortally wounded himself His irreparable loss, added to his dying injunction that peace should be made, put an end to hostilities ; and a general pacification ensued. Though victorious at Mantinea, the Thebans had not bettered their position : or rather the decline of their active influence over /. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. XV their confederates may be dated from that battle. Phocis had sent no contingent. The reduction of the old autonomous cities in Boeotia, especially Orchomenus, must have excited general indig- nation. Yet worse, the two great Theban generals and statesmen were now dead, and their places were never filled. Still Thebes was strong. She was sovereign in Boeotia. She held Oropus. Most of Euboea, Thessaly, and the northern and western states were in friendly union with her. In the Peloponnese, Sparta was degraded, and, with Elis, was kept in check by the new Arcadia and Messene ; Argos, too, was Theban ; Corinth, Sicyon, and the other cities to the north-east, were isolated and neutral. She had only one rival, Athens. By the close of this period (c. 360 B.C.) the Athenians had recovered much of their old com- mercial prosperity : their fleet was the most powerful in Greece ; they were at the head of a large insular alliance, and possessed, of their own right, Pydna, Potidaea, Methone, together with Samos and valuable conquests in the Thracian Chersonese. From the accession of Philip to his first advance into Thessaly. The rival states met in Euboea. In 358 b.c. the Thebans were in possession of the island. Moved by a sudden impulse the Athenians resolved to assert their claims. Volunteers took upon themselves the trierarchies.^ In five days an expedition was pre- pared : in thirty days the Thebans were compelled to evacuate all Euboea, which then joined the Athenian confederacy, sending members to the synod and subsidies to the common fund. Athens was now at her zenith. But a rapid declension fol- lowed in the next five years, to which two causes mainly con- tributed. The first was the Social War (357-355 b.c). Athens had selfishly appropriated to her own citizens the acquisitions made by the help of her allies ; her own contingents had consisted of mer- cenaries, whose employment led to extortion and rapine. She had also robbed Byzantium of its port dues. Chios, as oligarchical, had never been in full sympathy with her. The Carian prince, Mausolus, established an oligarchy at Rhodes, and occupied Cos. * See note on § 102 of this Speech. xvi INTRODUCTION, These four states seceded. Athens, in her attempts to reclaim them by force, was unfortunate. She met with repulses at Chios and at Byzantium, and lost the services of her best commanders — the gallant Chabrias having been killed at Samos ; and Timotheus fined, Iphicrates driven into retirement, on the representations of their less competent colleague Chares. In 355 b.c. the threat of Persian interference brought the war to an end, and Athens recognised the independence of the seceding cities. The second cause, operating simultaneously with the Social War, and furthered by the distraction of Athenian activity which that occasioned, was the aggression of Philip. As an hostage for the amity of Macedon, he had spent some years at Thebes, and had there enjoyed the example and society of Pelopidas and Epaminondas. The death of his brother Perdiccas forced him, amid a crowd of competitors, to the Macedonian throne (359 B-c) in his twenty-fourth year. During the earlier portion of his reign he had, again and again, to meet in battle or to treat with his traditionary enemies and neighbours in Thrace, Illyria, and Paeonia. He first came into contact with the Athenians as the supporters of Argaeus, a rival to the Macedonian sceptre. To them he offered Amphipolis, the * jewel of their old empire,' which they had for more than sixty years longed to regain ; and, when he crushed Argaeus, he sent home the Athenian volunteers who had served under that pretender, with the kindest treatment and the most friendly off'ers. Peace was concluded between Macedon and Athens ; but the latter power, perhaps owing to her occupations in the Chersonese, neglected Amphipolis for more than a year. In the meantime Philip had grown strong in his relations with the neighbouring inland nations. At the end of the year 358 b.c. he laid siege to Amphipolis, which indeed had belonged to him as little as to the Athenians. The people of Amphipolis besought Athenian help. Philip, on the other hand, declared that he desired the possession of that city in order to complete its surrender to Athens ; and Athens, with a fatal credulity, believed him. Philip then achieved its capture — an achievement that gave him the auriferous regions of Pangaeus, worth, as he worked them, a thou- sand talents annually. Deluding Athens with assurances, never to I. ATHENS 4^^ — 33^ B.C. xvii be fulfilled, he further led her, thanks to the gold he had now begun to employ as a diplomatic agent, and through the mouthpiece of Athenian speakers (who talked mysteriously of his willingness to exchange Amphipolis for the once-Macedonian Pydna), to reject a proffered alliance with Olynthus, now — after emancipation from Sparta — the head of a union of thirty-four cities. His next step was to propitiate Olynthus by the present of the district of Anthemus, and subsequently of the important Potidaea. Pydna he took for himself (356 b.c), and henceforward considered himself free from any obligations to Athens in the matter of Amphipolis. Such were the beginnings of the ' war about AmphipoHs/ which lasted for some twelve years (till 346 b.c), without any formal peace. Athens was obstructed by her own negligence, by the re- luctance of her citizens to serve in person, and by the misconduct of her mercenaries (owing largely to her own failure in their pay- ment), as well as by the Social War. Chares, indeed, for a time obtained some successes in the Hellespont, and obliged the Thracian prince Cersobleptes to become an Athenian ally, sur- rendering all his possessions in the Chersonese except Cardia. On the other hand Philip besieged Methone, the last stand- point of Athens on the Macedonian coast, and captured it 353 B-c. Thebes, also, in the interval, had fallen into trouble. Soon after Leuctra she had revived the long dormant Amphictyonic Council,^ and, by her influence among the representatives of the northern tribes who formed a majority in that Council, had caused a heavy fine to be inflicted on the Lacedaemonians for their seizure of the Cadmea. In 357 b.c. she succeeded in obtaining a similar sentence against the Phocians, towards whom she had for six or seven years entertained grudges, on account of an alleged sacrilegious trespass on the demesne of Apollo. Neither fine, of course, was paid. In the latter case, the Phocians, as defaulters, were doomed by the Council to elimination. In response, Phocis, roused by Philomelus, seized Delphi, once part of the Phocian estate, and defeated an assault of Amphissian Locrians. Thus began the Sacred War, which paved Philip's way to the mastery over Hellas. The Thebans, together with the northern ^ See note on this Speech, § 143. b xviii INTRODUCTION, Amphictyonic tribes, took arms against Phocis : Athens and Sparta gave her promises of help, but, as it proved — owing perhaps, later, to the impious malappropriation of the Delphic treasures by the Phocian commanders — gave little more than promises. Chequered campaigns, lasting over several yaers, ensued. Philomelus, on his death, was succeeded by Onomarchus, who made himself master of the district of Thermopylae and allied himself with Lycophron, the new despot of Pherae. Lycophron's foes, the Aleuads, or ancient houses of Thessaly, provoked by his encroachments, were instigated by Eudicus and Simus, of Larissa, to solicit the help of Philip, who was now (353 b.c.) at Methone. Philip marched into Thessaly, and took Pagasae — an Athenian fleet arriving too late to save that port — and defeated Phayllus, brother and subordinate of Onomarchus. On the arrival, however, of Onomarchus in person, he was twice defeated by the Phocian commander, and withdrew — in his own words ' retiring, like a battering-ram, to be more terrible in his return' — to his own kingdom. From the beginning of Demosthenes public life to the end of the Olynthiac war. In the interval, the Phocians were at the high flood of their fortunes, the Thebans at a low ebb. Sparta, catching at the oppor- tunity, tried to reassert herself in Messenia and Arcadia. Envoys, laden with alluring promises, were sent by her to Athens, and were there met by a rival embassy from Megalopolis. The debate in the Athenian assembly was hot, and Demosthenes took part in it. His general principle, in the oration pro Megalo- politanis, was that both Sparta and Thebes should be kept weak, and he recommended that Athens herself should assume the pro- tectorate of Arcadia, in place of Thebes, maintaining the inde- pendence of Megalopolis against Lacedaemon. His advice, however, does not seem to have prevailed, as nothing was done in the matter. He had begun public life the year before (354 b.c.) by a speech, de Symmoriis, on the occasion of a panic caused by rumours of a Persian invasion ; and he had struck the same keynote in which his /. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. Xix subsequent speeches, the Philippics and Olynthiacs, are written. At present, he said, Athens had no grounds for fear, but must bestir herself. As the traditionary champion of Pan-Hellenic liberty, she must be prepared for emergencies. Then followed definite suggestions for the improvement of her means and forces. This first speech is marked by strong patriotism, by appeals to his country to act up to her noblest past, by a thorough grasp of the situation, and by practical wisdom. It also contained some very plain-speaking about the political failings of his countrymen, and these were serious. The Athenian citizen had wholly changed from the type eulo- gised by Pericles. * Pugnacity, Pan-Hellenic championship, and the love of adventure, had died within him ' (Grote). They had been succeeded by a home-keeping spirit, a love of the pleasures of city life, the taste for trade, and a constraining indisposition for the burdens of personal military service, made worse by a back- wardness even to pay for substitutes. Owing to the decline of the 'citizen mihtia,' soldiership had become a profession, filled by adventurers, penniless, hopeless, and homeless. These roving mercenaries, for whom there was now little oudet in the way of emigration, were a misfortune to the whole of Greece. At Athens, apathy and the aversion to a vigorous foreign policy fostered the growth of a peace-at-any-price party, led by the orator Eubulus, and the ' perpetual general ' Phocion, a blunt, sarcastic man, re- spected universally for his integrity, but a pronounced pessimist. Such an Athens was soon to be brought into conflict with Philip. In neither of the above orations is he even named by Demosthenes ; yet he had already created, out of the excellent raw material found in the poor and rude shepherds of Macedonia, a large standing army, continually exercised in the field of battle, and organised with a splendid military genius which had been trained - in the school of Epaminondas. The Thebans had taken the field again, but had suffered re- verses at the hands of Onomarchus, who captured Coronea, when Philip re-appeared in arms in Thessaly. He proclaimed that he was come to destroy Pheraean tyranny, to administer vengeance on Phocian impiety, and to restore to the Amphictyons their Pylaean synod. He was joined by the Thessalians at large. Onomarchus b2 XX I NT ROD UCTION. united with Lycophron, and a battle took place (352 b.c.) near Pagasae, in sight of an Athenian fleet which lay off the coast. The forces of Onomarchus were routed with great slaughter, their commander himself being among the slain ; and the defeat was followed by the expulsion of Lycophron, who transferred his mer- cenaries to Phocis. Philip then besieged and took Pagasae, Athenian help coming to the relief too late, and marched south- wards to Thermopylae. There, by an extraordinary effort, the Athenians, under Nausicles, had already manned the Pass. They were supported later by auxiliaries from Sparta and Achaea ; and Philip found himself obliged to retreat. So southern Greece was saved for the moment. But Philip soon made himself master' of Thessaly (352-350 b.c). He had also acquired a considerable naval power ; and, v/hile he himself passed northwards to carry on aggressive operations in Thrace, his flying squadrons descended on the Athenian islands, on Euboea, even on the coast of Mara- thon (where they made prize of a sacred galley), and did incalculable damage to Athenian commerce. Phayllus continued the war against Thebes with varying success. On his death (351 b.c.) he was succeeded by Phalaecus. The scene was for a time changed to the Peloponnese, where the Phocians assisted Lacedaemon against Arcadia and Messene, the latter rein- forced by Theban troops ; but no result ensued, except an increase of ill-feeling on either side. As the campaigns proceeded under Phalaecus, Phocis was ravaged. Pangs of remorse, made keener as the Delphic treasures were becoming exhausted, arose in that country; and Phalaecus fell into disfavour. Still Phocis retained her hold upon Boeotia ; and Thebes grew impoverished both in men and means, owing to the protraction of the war. Philip was now recognised as formidable by Greece at large. Irritation at his successes was especially felt by Athens, the principal victim of his depredations, but issued in nothing more than the despatch of feeble mercenary expeditions and incessant complaints against the failures of the generals. When news came, at the end of 352 B.C., that the Macedonian king was attacking Heraeon- Teichos, in the close neighbourhood of the Athenian possessions in the Chersonese, preparations were, indeed, begun for a great armament ; but the news of his sickness and rumours of his death /. ATHENS 403 — 338 B.C. xxi led to a relaxation of the eifort. It was now that Demosthenes delivered his first Philippic. He recognised the danger to be ap- prehended from Macedon, but saw that there was yet time to pre- vent it. After showing that the late humiliations of Athens were due to the culpable negligence of her citizens, who acted in strange contrast with the unresting vigour of the enemy, he proposed the formation of two great forces, one for continuous operations, having its headquarters at some convenient centre in the Aegean, the other to be kept as a reserve at home, but ready to move at a moment's notice ; and he exhibited a financial scheme by which the necessary funds could be provided. Above all, he insisted on the personal service of a large proportion of Athenian citizens. Probably he had against him the elder statesmen who belonged to the peace party, and perhaps, by this time, paid agents of Philip. At any rate, all the action taken was to send out a ridiculously small and ill-provided fleet, under the mercenary chief Charidemus. The years 352-347 b.c. witnessed an advance of the Macedonian power as rapid and deadly as it had been unexpected. Philip was absent himself from Greece, during the earlier portion, at least, of this period ; but his officers were active, and his gold omnipresent. Great as a general, he was greater as a diplomatist. He had a keen eye for the internal dissensions of his enemies, and a skilful hand in fomenting them. It may perhaps be said that, after his first success against the Phocians, he never attacked a city in which there was not already an organised minority politically and person- ally interested in his cause. No town was impregnable, he said himself, to which an ass, laden with gold, could climb. . To his credit, on attaining his objects, he generally showed scant courtesy to such unpatriotic servants of his ambition. These years were especially disastrous to Athens in her relations with Chalcidice and Euboea. Olynthus had seceded from her anti-Athenian alliance with Philip in 352 b.c. Philip did not begin serious operations against the Olynthiac Confederacy till 350 b.c. But by 347 b.c his seduc- tions and his armies had laid in ruins thirty-two free Greek cities. Demosthenes delivered his Olynthiac Orations (350 b.c) after his city had united with Olynthus. The order of these speeches XXll INTRODUCTION. is uncertain. Grote makes that which is numbered II in the editions first in time. In this oration Demosthenes dwelt on the importance of the Olynthiac alliance, and pointed out signs and germs of decay in Philip's power : yet, on the other hand, he insisted that Athens must reform her finances, and every citizen do his duty to the full. Demosthenes, it must be remembered, was still ' in opposition,' and no steps were taken by the city. Before the delivery of what is, probably, the next speech, (numbered I), things had grown worse for Chalcidice. Demosthenes now vehemently demanded that help should be sent to Olynthus, and that Philip should also be attacked at home. If the Theoric fund could not be touched, then extraordinary subscriptions must be raised — for money must be had — and must be supplemented by personal ser- vice. At this juncture, mercenaries were sent by Athens to Chal- cidice, and achieved some successes there, which flattered Athenian pride, and threatened to confirm Athenian inaction. In the third Olynthiac (III) Demosthenes warned his countrymen not to be deluded — Philip was not beaten yet — and he even ventured to advise distinctly the diversion of the Theoric fund from holiday purposes to more serious needs. This speech must have been as unpopular as it is splendid. As before, Athenians were deaf to their best adviser. Macedonian influence in Euboea was won mainly by intrigue, beginning 349 b.c. Disturbances at Eretria drew the Athenians thither, under Phocion, who found himself surrounded by treachery. The bad faith of Callias of Chalcis, in particular, led him into straits at Tamynae, from which his troops only extricated themselves by signal valour. A further expedition was accompanied by Demos- thenes — who had strongly disapproved of the first, his non-parti- cipation in which had, indeed, laid him open to a charge of λιτΓοτα^ία. Euboea, however, continued unfriendly to Athens, in spite of the great effbrts made by the latter, during the next two years, to regain her position in the island. Similar efl"orts were made to help Olynthus — a decree was even passed, though afterwards in- validated, to apply the Theoric fund to the purposes of war — with similar non-success. The Macedonian arms (348-347 b.c.) ' finished the business of Olynthus,* most thoroughly. Exiles, and /. ATHENS 403 — 338 B.C. xxiii trains of enslaved captives, from Chalcidice, were sights common in southern Greece, and excited both pity and indignation. PhiHp himself was triumphant, and held, in his own kingdom, a grand Olympic festival, at which rewards, gifts, and favours were lavishly distributed. Events leading to the Peace 0/ Philocrates, and its consequences. Among the captives taken and retained in the Olynthiac war by the Macedonian generals were Athenian citizens of importance ; and the private petitions and general desire for their restoration raised much emotion in the assemblies of Athens 347 b.c. More than this, her Aegean possessions were threatened; and the feeling thus aroused was embittered by all the wrong-doings of Macedon during a war now extending over some twelve years. So, for a moment, even the peace party woke up. Envoys were sent throughout Hellas, especially in the Peloponnese, to raise a crusade against Philip. Among them, Aeschines (now a soldier of repute, with distinctions won at Phlius, Mantinea, Tamynae, and a rising orator) went to Megalopolis. Here, he declares, his elo- quence was thwarted by Philip's creatures, especially one Hierony- mus ; and his experience was probably typical. The gold-mines of Philippi had pushed their products throughout the independent cities of Greece: political selfishness and shortsightedness still reigned in these : and Athens found that no active cooperation of the Greeks at large, even against a common enemy, could be hoped for. Peace, therefore, seemed to be a necessity. It was preached by Eubulus and by Aeschines. Isocrates had even begun to accept Philip as the arbiter of the destinies of Greece, and to urge him to proceed in the name of all Hellas to the extermination of the ancient foe, Persia. Demosthenes was helpless to stem such a tide of feeling, and was obliged to acquiesce. On his return from Euboea he had become a member of the senate, and as such, certain formal duties fell on him which were afterwards made grounds of un- founded accusation against him. Further inducements towards a reconciliation with Macedonia supervened. Philip seems always to have entertained a kindly xxiv INTRODUCTION, feeling towards Athens, due probably to a respect for her past glories, and, still more, to his appreciation of her eminence in letters and in art; and he Avas on terms of friendship with her leading actors and philosophers. He was not a man to be carried out of his way by sentiment: indeed he appropriated Athenian possessions, whenever they stood in his path, or promised him advantage, without hesitation. But, his ends secured, he always sought, by every courtesy that political exigencies allowed, to show a good-will to Athens which was in marked contrast to his treat- ment of other, even Hellenic, states and cities. When other motives coincided with this feeling of regard, his amiability towards Athens was profuse. Some instances of the sort, occurring at the present conjuncture, helped very much to bring about his politic peace. Peace had already been mooted, in 348 b.c, by envoys from Euboea to Athens, who made it their business to communicate the good dispositions of Philip. A certain Athenian citizen, Phrynon, who had been captured at sea by a Macedonian cruiser during the Olympiac truce, and had been obliged to purchase his deliverance, obtained from the Assembly a deputy, Ctesiphon, to go with him to reclaim his ransom: they returned successful, and both were loud in the praises of the Macedonian king. Philocrates, the prime mover in all the subsequent negotiations, passed a decree which gave Philip permission to send a herald and envoys; and, in a prosecution which was brought against him, he was acquitted by the advocacy of Demosthenes, who was probably unaware, as yet, of the corrupt Philippism of his client. Philip did not avail himself of the decree, waiting for a better opportunity. Next year the actor Aristodemus, sent to treat for the restoration of the Athenian captives, came back, accompanied by a citizen of note, latrocles, whose release had been granted without ransom ; and formally announced, both before the senate and in the assembly, Philip's friendliness towards the city, and his desire not only for peace but also alliance with her. Simultaneously, or soon after, the total failure of the missions to the Peloponnese was learnt. News came of the growing im- poverishment and the internal dissensions of Phocis, the latter resulting in the formal deposition of Phalaecus ; who nevertheless, /. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. XXV as a matter of fact, retained command of the forces lying in Locris. Attempts that had been made by Athens to form a union with Thebes Avere also fruitless. Worse than all, the Thebans, worn out by the long Sacred War, took a most fatal step — fatal eventually, not only to themselves, but to the independence of all Hellas — and called in the aid, which was only too readily granted, and only too near at hand, of Philip. When, on this, Phocis cried for succour, the insubordinate Phalaecus rejected with insults the support which promptly reached him from Athens and Sparta. Still Philip dared not try the Pass of Thermopylae. He might hope to do so with success if he could but secure the neutrality of Athens, and so have the Phocians alone left in the field against him. Desire for rest on the part of the Athenians, anxiety for their countrymen who remained in captivity, their lack of allies, their besetting improvidence, and the shameless corruption and startling mendacity of some of their leading men, all worked together for him, and he achieved the notorious Peace of Philo- CRATES (346 B.C.). The incidents of the conclusion of this peace led three years later to the trial ' Concerning the Dishonest Embassy' (πβρί r^y τΐαραπρ€σβ€ίας), on which Acschines won a bare acquittal against the charges of Demosthenes. The orators contradict one another in many respects, and Aeschines' speech is seriously inconsistent Λvith his oration * Against Ctesiphon* on the later trial ' Concerning the Crown.' As, in the year 343 b.c, Philocrates was under dis- grace and an exile, and renewed irritation against Philip had lifted the Avar party into the ascendant at Athens, it was to the interest of both orators to clear themselves of responsibility for the peace, and of complicity with Philocrates : this they do, each accusing the other of venality and treachery. Hence the history of the peace is hard to discover in its completeness. For the present purpose, however, it is enough to state the main and admitted facts. At the close of 347 b.c, on the motion of Philocrates, ten Athenian envoys were sent to ascertain the mind of Philip. These were Philocrates, Ctesiphon, Phrynon, latrocles, Aristodemus — already partisans of Philip — Dercyllus, Cimon, Nausicles, Aeschines, Demosthenes. A courteous reception awaited the ambassadors at XXVI INTRODUCTION, Pella, where they addressed Philip in turn. Aeschines declares that Demosthenes, who had made himself disagreeable during all the journey, broke down in his speech, while he himself made a great oration, which, if we accept his own account of it, was of a character remarkably inappropriate under the circumstances. At any rate, the rivalry of the two orators arose on this first embassy. Philip made his response, to the effect that he was willing to con- tract a peace, each party to remain /;/ statu quo ; and at once started for Thrace, against Cersobleptes, on the day on which he dismissed the envoys, instructing representatives of his own to proceed without delay to Athens. The envoys brought home with them a letter from PhiUp, couched in most amicable terms, and containing in- definite promises of good services to be done by him hereafter. Some of the envoys, in the account of their proceedings, took occasion to dwell on the hospitality, grace, and accomplishments of the Macedonian prince. In the month of Elaphebolion 346 b.c. the Macedonian pleni- potentiaries, Antipater, Parmenio, and Eurylochus, arrived. On the 1 8th, Philocrates moved a decree, accepting the terms of peace between Philip and his allies on the one part, Athens and her allies on the other ; but with a clause excluding the Phocians. To this clause strong objections were raised, and it was omitted when, next day, the decree was passed. The difficulty still remained, as Antipater would not tender the oaths to the Phocian deputies, and Athens would not renounce her old allies. In a few days, how- ever, the obstacle was surmounted. The means employed were marvellous. Philocrates, and Aeschines (who now can only be looked upon as a corrupt agent of Macedon), had the effrontery to affirm that the exclusion of Phocis was a mere form, necessitated by Philip's Theban alliance. In reality PhiUp was anti-Theban, and would declare himself very shortly. Phocian interests would be safe in his hands. The Macedonian generals tacitly encouraged the .delusion, ^y so gross and palpable a lie did the people of Athens, in the thirst for repose and with selfish blindness, allow themselves to be persuaded ! A suggestion of the synod of the allies present at the time, to the effect that all Hellenic states, which chose to do so within three months, should be enabled to subscribe their names on the instrument, was neglected. By the 25th, Athens /. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. xxvii took the oaths ratifying, not only peace, but alliance with Philip, in her own name and independently. Thus the Phocians were practically, though not formally, excluded. In all this Demosthenes, however reluctantly, acquiesced. But he did his utmost to save his country from worse humiliation. On the 25th, an embassy, consisting of the same members as before, had been instructed to go at once, wherever Philip might be, and administer the oaths to him. As each party to the treaty was to retain the possessions held at the time of its ratification, haste was all important, in order to stop Philip from further con- quests. His activity was indicated by the news, received next day, of his capture of the Sacred Mountain in Thrace, close to the Chersonese. Still, on the 3rd of the next month, Munychion, the ambassa- dors — ail by now, probably, partisans of Philip, except Demosthenes, who had taken the duty with great unwillingness — had not moved. Demosthenes procured a further decree, commanding the utmost despatch. Yet his colleagues, by constant delay, and by waiting at Pella, wasted fifty days, after leaving Attica, before they saw Philip. He had then returned, the conqueror of Thrace, to his capital ; where other envoys, also, from Thebes, Sparta, Euboea, Phocis, awaited him, and a great Macedonian army was gathered. Still he was not pressed to take the oaths by the Athenian ambassadors, who discussed other matters with him, and sent home utterly fallacious reports. Demosthenes protested in vain. So great was the breach betw^een him and his colleagues that he would have gone away had he not been prevented. Philip met the demands, and kept alive the hopes, of all parties by de- lusive assurances, and began his southward march. On reaching Pherae, he submitted to be sworn, publicly excluding the Phocians, but including his newly-created allies in Thrace. The ambas- sadors reached Athens on the 13th Scirophorion, seventy-six days after the date of the original decree passed to despatch them on their mission. Demosthenes instantly accused his fellow-envoys before the Senate, and made that body so sensible of the mag- nitude of the immediate danger, that it framed a measure of de- fence to be submitted to the assembly on the i6th. On that day, before business could be commenced, Aeschines rose, and allayed xxviii INTRODUCTION, the fears which the vicinity of Philip, now within three days' march of Thermopylae, had awaked, by a speech full of glowing promises, both explicit and vague, which met every political desire enter- tained at Athens. Demosthenes was hooted and laughed down. A cleverly-worded letter of Philip was read, to be followed imme- diately by two others in the same vein, inviting Athenian forces to join him at Thermopylae. No troops were sent, but a decree was carried by Philocrates, giving Philip every moral support. Once more the same ten ambassadors were appointed, to convey this decree to Philip : Demosthenes, however, refused to go, and Aeschines made an excuse of illness to stay behind ; so others took their places. Scarcely had these envoys reached Chalcis when they heard terrible news. Phalaecus, informed that no help would come from Athens, had made terms for himself and his troops, and sur- rendered the Pass on the 23rd ; and all the towns of Phocis had hastened to offer their submission. Philip had joined forces with Thebes, and proclaimed a policy wholly in the Theban interest. The tidings reached Athens on the 27th, and panic efforts were made for defence against an anticipated invasion. These apprehensions were lulled by professions of good faith received from Philip, and by the long-desired restoration of the Athenian citizens, who had been captured at Olynthus, to their homes : but nothing could remove the indignation and chagrin of the Athenians at the loss of their hopes, and the ignominious failure of an ignoble policy. Aeschines now plucked up strength to travel, and was even well enough to assist at the solemnities and festivities, with which the close of the Sacred War was celebrated by the Thebans, Thessa- lians, and Macedonians in Phocis. There Philip was master : he commanded a great allied army, and was venerated as the defender of religion, victorious without striking a blow. After placing the temple of Apollo once more in the hands of the Delphians, he convened the Amphictyonic Council, which had not met for ten years. The Amphictyons showed their gratitude to Philip by electing him member of the Sacred League, and investing him with the votes which they took from the excommunicated Phocians. They proceeded to fix and pronounce the doom of that unhappy /. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. xxix people, of whom such as possessed the means had already gone into exile with Phalaecus, or sought asylum. The sentence was hard. The Phocian cities were to be razed to the ground; the inhabitants to be disarmed and dispersed among small hamlets, the size and situation of which were regulated by severe restrictions. They were still allowed to till most of their lands, subject however to an annual fine of fifty talents, to be paid to the god at Delphi. The execution of this sentence was left to old and bitter enemies, such as the Thebans and Thessalians, who committed atrocious excesses of butchery and rapine in its name. For years afterwards Phocis was a spectacle that filled the traveller with awe and pity. Ruins of houses and walls lay among starved fields. It was a land where you could not meet a man in the prime of life — only old men and women and a few little children, whose misery no words could express. From the renewal of hosiilities to Chaeronea. Thebes had little solid reason for self-congratulation. Her vengeance, perhaps, was satisfied ; certainly a long and harassing war was over ; and something of her old pre-eminence in Boeotia was restored. But her victory was, in a political sense, Cadmean. She was utterly dwarfed and obscured by the magnitude and splendour of the position of Philip. He showed no inclination to retire. He held, in Thermopylae, the keys of Greece, and he never relinquished them. While he strengthened himself, nearer home, by a reorganisation of Thessaly, and by vigorous move- ments against his more northern neighbours, he was incessantly and ubiquitously active, especially in intrigue, throughout the whole of Hellas. Everywhere his partisans grew into parties. Greece was divided ; and no recombination was conceivably possible, except under the leadership of Athens. At Athens, indeed, Philocrates had preached peace when there was no peace. His treaty lasted, formally, from 346 to 340 b.c, — practically, for a period to be measured in weeks rather than years. At the outset, only such prudent advice as that of Demosthenes in the speech ' Concerning the Peace * (πβρι t^s (Ιρηνηή, when he counselled his countrymen not to 'fight the XXX INTRODUCTION. world for the shadow at Delphi,' prevented a downright refusal to recognise Philip as member, and protector, of the Amphictyonic league. But Philip's restless aggression soon caused hostilities to recommence. The details of these are not known, — in fact our only knowledge of the period is gathered from the various speeches of Demosthenes and ^schines, — but we need only mark the chief incidents. The star of Demosthenes began to rise in the dark hour of Athens. He had, indeed, for years before, shown the strong light of truth : but the truth had been disagreeable, and had been without potency. Now his influence became felt. The exact occasion of his second Philippic is unknown. It was delivered 344-343 B.C., and is, in form, an answer to deputations from the Peloponnese, where Philip's machinations had been busy, especially among the Messenians. Demosthenes declares, most definitely, that Philip's ultimate aims were against the City. The only safeguard was contained in the one word, which he had lately, as envoy, tried to inculcate in the Peloponnese, and that was 'Distrust.' Let Athens call to account those who had inveigled her with strange promises, so strangely falsified ; and, henceforth, keep watch and ward. Demosthenes' eloquence was felt even by Philip, who sent to Athens a powerful Macedonian orator, Pytho, to counteract it. Pytho carried the day with suggested alterations of the terms of peace ; but, in the end, nothing came of these. The rapid spread of Philippism ^ drove Athens first to defensive measures. She garrisoned her frontier, and secured IVIegara. Later, she expelled from Oreus and Eretria the tyrants whom Philip had established there, and created an independent Euboeic league, of which the most prominent member was CalUas, of Chalcis, now a vigorous opponent of Macedon. Open hostilities now began in the region of the North Aegean. Philip caused great offence by laying hands on Halonnesus (343 B.C.). His offers to give the island to Athens were rejected : he must give it back. The quarrel lasted for two years, until, in 341 B.C., the island was appropriated by the Peparethians. Resenting this, Philip sacked Peparethus, and was guilty of great cruelties there. ^ See the list of traitors given in the Speech below, § 295. /. ATHENS 403 — 338 B.C. xxxi In 342-341 B.C., Philip was in Thrace, evidently preparing his way for the acquisition of the important positions in the Cher- sonese. His ally, Cardia, refused to accept any portion of a number of Athenian settlers who had arrived under the command of the general Diopithes. Proffered arbitration in the dispute was declined by Athens, who could not so lightly abdicate her sovereignty in the peninsula. Diopithes, among other military movements, raided in the Macedonian districts of Thrace, and made good his return to the Chersonese before Philip could reach him. Philip sent serious complaints to Athens, where his creatures tried to procure the recall of Diopithes. This was prevented by Demosthenes. In the two Speeches, 'Concerning the affairs of the Chersonese * (πβρί τών eV Χ^ρρονησω), and ' Against Philip ' {κατά Φιλίηπον γ), delivered at the end of 341 B.C., he declared that the peace had never been carried out, and had long ago been broken, on the part of the Macedonian, whom he denounced as the dangerous foe both of Athens and of Hellas; and, most emphatically, he gave his sentence for open war. He had already gone on missions to the Peloponnese and to Western Greece. Now he went as envoy to Byzantium, where, by rare eloquence and diplomatic skill, he broke down the barrier of ill-feeling which had stood and grown, for nearly fifteen years, between Athens and the Byzantines, and won their alliance, as well as that of their neighbours, the Perinthians. Philip, in response, besieged Perinthus, ravaged the Chersonese, and dispatched cruisers to scour the Aegean. At length Athens, formally de- clared war ; and Philip did the same, in a long manifesto preserved among the speeches of Demosthenes (340 b.c). The siege of Perinthus was memorable for the magnitude of the attacking forces and the obstinacy of the defence. Relief came in the shape of a joint expedition of Athenians, Byzantines, and Persians. Philip then tried to surprise Byzantium, but was dis- lodged by an allied fleet under Phocion ; who pressed him from point to point, and maintained a mastery over the whole sea. These naval successes must have been largely due to the trierarchic reform^ of Demosthenes (340 b.c). They won his city the admiration ^ See note on § 102 of this Speech. xxxii INTRODUCTION. and gratitude of her allies ; and Demosthenes himself received a public vote of thanks. At this juncture a peace is said, by Diodorus, to have intervened ; but his statement is generally doubted. Philip, at any rate, desisted from the personal conduct of the war, and departed (339 b.c.) on his Scythian expedition. Aeschines, during this period of Demosthenes' ascendancy, had been comparatively idle, his chief interference in politics having been a partially successful attempt to spoil the Trierarchic Law. He now wrought a mischief such, that if he foresaw the conse- quences — and only judicial blindness could have hid them from him — he must rank among the arch-traitors of the world's history. This was the kindling of a new Sacred War. As deputy in the Amphictyonic Council, held at Delphi, in the spring of 339 b.c, he accused the Amphissian Locrians of trespass on the demesne of Apollo, rousing the Council to make a violent protest, and to summon an extraordinary meeting of the members of the League to confirm and carry out a sentence of condemnation on the alleged off"enders.^ Athens, at first inclined to assist, took better advice, and stood aloof; as did also Thebes. The operations of the Amphictyonic army were feeble in the extreme. No doubt they were intended to be so by the Macedonian agents, who were engaged in the business. These men soon performed their service, and procured that a call should be sent to Philip, as the champion of the god. Philip, thus invited, and having a clear road before him into the heart of Greece, soon marched southwards. On the way, he transferred Nicaea, one of the defences of Thermopylae, from Theban to Thessalian hands. Then he directed his course to Elatea, which he occupied, and began to rebuild the dismantled fortifications. At the same time he sent to Thebes to announce that his intentions were against Athens, and to ask for moral, if not material, support. Thebes was the last obstacle in his path — indeed, unless she allowed him a passage through her territory, he could not touch Attica, which the superiority of the Athenian fleet rendered impregnable on the seaboard. As, however, Thebes was still unfriendly to Athens, and had lately given proofs of her * Details of these proceedings are given Aeschines Contra Ct. §§ 107 sqq. (see below, p. xlii), and Demosthenes de Cor. §§145 sqq. /. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. xxxiii enmity by rejecting repeated overtures from that city, he had little doubt of carrying his point. The alarm which was caused at Athens by the news of the seizure of Elatea is described, in a famous passage, by Demo- sthenes.^ The city was paralysed. He alone rose to the occasion, which he had so long foreseen. Coming forward in the expectant assembly, and generously forgetting to dwell on his neglected prophecies, he pointed out what was to be done. This was to arm, defend the frontiers, and once more send an embassy to Thebes with offers of alliance on the most liberal terms. On this embassy he went himself; and, in the face of enormous odds, in spite of the old hatreds of the two cities, and in opposition to the presence and proffers of representatives, not only from Philip but from all his allies, he won the day by his eloquence. His speech, unhappily, is not preserved.^ The alliance was immediately consummated, and a Thebano-Athenian force was soon under arms in Boeotia. Of the ensuing war, which lasted nearly a year, we know little. On the one hand, Philip appealed in vain to the Peloponnese ; but succeeded in cutting to pieces a body of 10,000 mercenaries which had been lent to Amphissa, and in carrying out his minor purpose of punishing that state for her alleged sacrilege. On the other hand, Demosthenes was indefatigable. He diverted the Theoric fund, at last, to military purposes. His 'gaddings about' resulted in the acquisition of allies and the collection of funds in many parts of Hellas. The patriotic allies reconstituted Phocis, and fortified Ambrysus. We hear, also, of two victories won by them, in ' the winter battle,' and ' the batde by the river.' Demosthenes received at home, on the motion of Demomeles and Hyperides, the honour of a golden crown, which was proclaimed at the great Dionysiac festival, March, 338 b.c. We hear, too, that Philip attempted separate negotiations with Thebes, which were frustrated by the orator. But no diplomacy and no eloquence could compensate for the military inferiority of most of the Greek troops and the incapacity ^ De Cor. §§169 sqq. ^ Kennedy feels its loss so much that he gives, from conjecture, a vigorous sketch of what it ' may have been,' in his Appendix * Chaeronea.' xxxiv INTRODUCTION. I. ATHENS 403—338 B.C. of their commanders, when they met the veterans of Macedon led by the greatest general since Epaminondas. The end soon came. In August, 338 B.C., a pitched battle was fought at Chaeronea, where, after a long and gallant resistance, the Greeks were utterly routed. More than a thousand Athenians fell, and twice that number were taken prisoners, while the losses of the other allies must have been terrible. Philip at once proceeded to inflict a heavy vengeance on Thebes for her unexpected opposition. He sold the Theban captives into slavery, banished or destroyed the leading citizens, set up an oligarchy of Three Hundred, chiefly composed of exiles and invested with absolute power, and stationed a Macedonian gar- rison in the Cadmea. He then secured his hold on Western Greece, and made a settlement of the Peloponnese. Sparta only, as proud as she was helpless, refused to submit. The news of the disaster had been received at Athens with the keenest disappointment and grief; but these were quickly followed by frenzied effbrts to place the city in a state of defence. The fortifications were hurriedly repaired with material taken from every quarter ; funds were gathered from the whole body of citizens, and from the islands ; and a levy was called of all who could bear arms. But Philip had no desire for the destruction of Athens. He was satisfied to off"er terms of peace, through the orator Demades. The prisoners should be returned without ransom, and Oropus restored to Athens, if she would accept and support the hegemony of Macedonia. To such conditions no refusal was possible, and Athens, resigning herself to her humilia- tion, accepted them. A great congress of the Hellenic states was assembled at Corinth the next year. Philip was recognised as the head of Greece; and required contingents from each state for a grand expedition against Persia. So the victor ' harnessed the Greeks to his car,' in preparation for the conquest of the world. //. THE TRIAL, XXXV II. The Trial. Demosthenes, in spite of the utter failure of his policy to maintain the dignity and independence of the city, still retained the respect of his countrymen. In addition to his offices of Treasurer of the Theoric Fund, and Conservator of the Walls, he was appointed to the important duty of special Corn-Commissioner. A still more marked and honourable distinction was that he was selected to deliver the funeral oration over the ashes of those who had died on the battle-fields of the late campaign. The Macedonian party, indeed, assailed him with every possible means of legal procedure, and, for a period, he was on his trial ' daily and all ,day long.' But in every case the prosecution failed. When 337-336 B.C. Ctesiphon proposed to confer on him a golden crown, to be proclaimed at the coming Dionysiac festival, in recognition of his public services and of a generous gift of three talents, which he had made towards the recent repair of the fortifications, his motion was passed by the Council of the Five Hundred. But here Aeschines interposed, and preferred against Ctesiphon an indictment for Breach of the Constitution, and the proposal could not be proceeded with until this charge had been tried. The trial did not take place for nearly seven years. During these years the history of Greece, apart from her rela- tions with Macedonia, of which indeed she was now merely a de- pendent province, is little better than a blank. The assassination of Philip, on the eve of his departure for Asia (336 b.c), was a cause for thanksgiving to all true patriots, and kindled hopes of liberation. These were dimmed by the promptitude of Alexander, who instantaneously filled his father's place, and removed any doubts of his ability to wield the Macedonian sceptre. Marching at once into Greece, at the head of an overwhelming force, he overawed all opposition, and, summoning a congress at Corinth, obtained a convention, by which he secured to himself the pre- rogatives before held by Philip, and laid down the conditions which were to rule inter-Hellenic affairs. These conditions he, c 2 xxxvi INTRODUCTION. and his generals, soon commenced and continued to violate, arousing a wide-spread discontent. In 335 b. c. he had left on a northern expedition. No news had been heard of him for a long time, and rumours grew that he had perished. The Thebans, throwing off their oligarchy, blockaded the Macedonian garrison. In this revolt they were encouraged by Demosthenes and other Athenian statesmen, and aided by them with gold which had come from Persia. Suddenly the existence of Alexander was announced by his appearance in person in Boeotia. Thebes was invested. The Thebans were too far committed to hope for reconciliation, and so defied him. They met his assaults with the courage of despair, but the city was stormed and wholly razed to the ground. Six thousand Thebans were slain in the massacre which took place : thirty thousand were sold into servitude. It is said that only the house, and the descendants, of Pindar were spared. The Cadmea was preserved as a Macedonian fort. The rest of Greece, was ter- rified into humble submission. Alexan der requir ed the surrender of ten At henian public men, among whom Demosthenes was first named, and it was with difficulty that he was persuaded to relax his demand. Once again, in 330 b.c, soon after the final victory at Arbela (331 b.c) had made Alexander lord of the East, the Spartan king, Agis, took up the cause of freedom : but he was defeated by Antipater, and died on the field the death of Leonidas. In August 330 B.C. the trial 'concerning the Crown' at length took place. The reasons for the delay are not evident. The charge having effectually blocked Ctesiphon's motion was then, perhaps, dropped, and was only revived when the triumph of Macedonism offered Aeschines and his party a favourable oppor- tunity to gratify old grudges. Or perhaps the continual uncertainty of the success of Alexander in Asia, the occasional neighbourhood of the Persian fleet, and the wide-felt sympathy with the hopes and efforts of Thebes and Sparta, had hitherto reduced the likeli- hood of obtaining a verdict in a large Athenian court. Certainly former attempts to indict those who had proposed to honour Demosthenes had signally failed, with serious loss to their authors ; and a similar fate had fallen on such as had more lately attacked the orator directly. On the other side, Demosthenes and his friends could not venture to challenge the prosecution. Demades //. THE TRIAL, xxxvii and Phocion were supreme in Athenian affairs, and the threatening growth of Macedonian power obliged the patriotic party to keep a prudent course.^ A contest, so long looked forward to, between the two greatest living orators, — who were not only bitter rivals, but also represented the two opposite policies which for twenty years had distracted every Hellenic state, — who were now met, as was well known, not so much to plead on points of local law, as to deal with questions which had been, and still were, of the highest moment to the Hellenic race, — woke the liveliest anticipation through the whole of Greece, and drew to Athens, from all quarters, an un- precedented concourse of hearers. At Athens itself every help which party strength could lend had been laid under requisition. Each orator was surrounded and supported by as many as possible of his most influential advocates. After being solemnly sworn, a full jury of five hundred dicasts took their seats in the court. Rumours had gone abroad about the grand points which either side would make. It was before the largest, most interested, and most critical audience which ever came together, that Aeschines rose for the prosecution. The Speech of Aeschines. Aeschines' argument was to the following effect : — Aeschines contra Ctesiphonte??i, §§ i-8. * I come here to vindicate law against undue influence and wirepulling. Instead of the orderly proceedings of the good old times, our assemblies are now overruled by factious disorder. One only remedy, one only safe- guard of your political liberties, lies in the indictment for Breach of the Constitution. Let no pressure prevent you from applying this remedy to-day and performing your high trust conscientiously. ^ Prof. Jebb, Att. Or. II. p. 400, says, ' In the spring of 330, probably, when there were still hopes of the Spartans prevailing, the patriotic party were emboldened to renew the bill of 337, now a dead letter. Aeschines was driven into a comer. He must again give notice of his action, or the bill will become law. And, having given notice, he must this time follow it up, or suffer the public judgment to go against him by default.' This is a very attractive solu- tion of the difficulty: but I cannot find authority for the statement, except perhaps the last words of the Irepa iinoOcais (preceding this speech) which close a passage that contains some very loose history. xxxviii INTRODUCTION. §§ 9-12. There has grown up a practice of nullifying the official responsibility of public servants by anticipatory votes of thanks or crowns, so that the court of Auditors cannot condemn an officer without stultifying the people. At first magistrates were boldly honoured before passing their scrutiny ; later, owing to a qualm of conscience, proposers added the proviso ' on passing the scrutiny.' Ctesiphon has taken the former and more lawless course. §§ 13-16. He cannot evade me by saying that a selected repre- seniative does not hold regular office^ but merely takes a charge and ministration, and that the law speaks only of officers elected by lot. As a fact, the law bids all publicly-chosen officers, all over- seers of public works, and all who have presidential jurisdiction in the law courts, to hold office, and register accounts thereof. Demo- sthenes, as Conservator of the Walls, was an overseer of public works, and had legal jurisdiction. [Laws quoted.] §§ 17-31. Nor will it avail Demosthenes to exclaim that there is no scrutiny into acts of generous loyalty. The constitution makes every public servant accountable — priest, trierarch, Areopagite, senator — so strictly, that, during his accountability, he may not leave the country, or change his family by adoption, or dispose of his property, whether he has handled public moneys or not. Besides, Demosthenes was Treasurer of the Theoric Fund. This post, from the time of Eubulus down to the law of Hegemon, absorbed the functions of the Clerk of the Exchequer and the Re- ceiver-General, the maintenance of the Dockyard and Arsenal, the province of the Commissioners of Roads, and almost every de- partment of the administration. [Decrees read in evidence 0/ Demosthenes' acts as Conservator of the Walls?^ It will be equally futile to plead that Demosthenes was nominated by his tribe. He was still a magistrate in the eye of the law. [Laws read^ §§ 32-34. The proposed proclamation of the crown in the theatre, also, was contrary to the law [Law read.\ I //. THE TRIAL, xxxix which directs that crowns given by the Commons are to be pro- claimed in the meeting-place of the Assembly, and those given by the Council in the Council-hall ; but nowhere else. §§ 35-48• The Dionysiac law, on which my opponents will vainly rely, was framed to put an end to promiscuous proclama- tions, in the theatre at the Dionysia, of emancipations, or crowns given by tribes or demes, which had become both an abuse and a nuisance. All these were abolished, and only crowns bestowed by foreign states were allowed to be announced in the Theatre, and even these were to be consecrated to Athene, while the pro- clamation had to be sanctioned by the people of Athens. §§ 49-50• Thi rdly, the statement of Demosthen es' claim to dis- ti nction constitutes an illegality : for it is false, and to j sert falsehoods in public bills or documents is expressly forbidden by law! ~ §§ 51-57• Ii^ treating the life of Demosthenes I will not trouble you with the stories, now too stale, of his scandalous behaviour in connection with Demomeles, Cephisodotus, Midias. He himself proposes, I believe, to make a fourfold division of his career, comprising — Firstly^ the period of the war with Philip, concerning Amphi- polis, down to the peace brought about by Philocrates and himself. Secondly^ the period of the peace, down to his own violation of it. Thirdly^ the period of the war down to Chaeronea ; and Fourthly^ the sequel down to to-day. Then he will force me, will-I nill-I, to answer, in which of these periods I impugn his conduct. I answer you now, Demosthenes, in presence of the jurors, in presence of our countrymen, in presence of all the Hellenes who have concerned themselves to assist at this trial — and never on any former occasion have so many congregated to witness a public contest — I answer t hat I impeach all the_periods of youx_career, according to your own division; and, please heaven and my "JreHrersri rshall prov e that the preservation of ^thens is due to Pr ovidence^ and to the courtesy and moderation of those w^ho xl INTRODUCTION. dealt with us, while of all our disasters Demosthenes has been the guilty cause. §§ 58-78. In the first period, you might have made peace in common with the general body of the Hellenes — Athenian pre- eminence to follow, — by waiting for the return of your embassies, had it not been for the venalities of Demosthenes and Philocrates. Do not be surprised at this charge, but listen with mathematical impartiality to the facts. If I demonstrate that Demosthenes did more than Philocrates to promote the peace, to flatter Philip and his ambassadors, to prevent the united action of Hellas, and to sacrifice Cersobleptes, then grant me that, in this portion at least of his public hfe, he has not done well. When Philocrates was put on trial for proposing the admission of Philip's envoys, he was acquitted by the help of Demosthenes, who then got into the senate, fraudulently, in order to support him there. Philocrates' second motion, to send ambassadors to invite plenipotentiaries from Philip, was carried ; and Demosthenes was one of those who went. He returned the eulogist of peace ; and proposed a safe-conduct for Philip's representatives. Philip further planned, through the instrumentality of Demosthenes and Philocrates, that, without waiting for the issue of your negotiations with the other Hellenes, you should vote not a peace only but an alliance, to the exclusion of Cersobleptes, against whom he was marching: and these ends Demosthenes ' Philip's foe!' secured by a sacrilegious hurrying on of your assemblies. Your allies, whom I supported, proposed a treaty of peace only, open to the accept- ance of any Hellene within three months. But at the second assembly, on the morrow of the first, Demosthenes, usurping the platform, declared that peace and alliance were indissoluble, and, after a collusive questioning of Antipater, helped Philocrates to carry the bill. Cersobleptes remained to be thrown over. Philocrates inserted a clause confining the terms of the treaty to the allies * who were present,' the Thracian king's envoy being accidentally absent ; and Demosthenes put the question to the vote. And this — mark — was before the second embassy. Then Demosthenes went out of his way to procure seats of honour for the Macedonian ambassadors at the theatre, attended //. THE TRIAL. xli them thither, and escorted them on their departure. This is the man who had a pretended revelation of PhiHp's death, and came abroad in holiday dress, though his only daughter had just been laid in her grave ! Can such a parent be a patriot ? §§ 79-83. In the second period we find Philocrates banished, Demosthenes on a pedestal : how came the change ? Seeing Philip in Phocis, Thebes too strong, and you panic-stricken, feeling that the authors of the peace were in peril, excited further by a private quarrel with Philocrates over the gold, and knowing himself to be a coward — what was Demosthenes to do ? Treacherously t urnino^ round on his fellow-ambassado rs, he indicted them, and w as then picked up by the w ar-parly -asu Uhe only incorruptible man/ In their service he set himself to discover grievances against Philip in connection with places hitherto unknown, Serrium and the like ; bade you require, but forbade you to re- ceive, envoys from him ; rejected his suggestion of arbitration, and charged you not to take, but only r^-take, Halonnesus, which was freely offered ; crowned the raiders who had followed Aristodemus into Thessaly and Magnesia ; and so, at last, created the fatal war. §§ 84-105. The Euboean and Theban alliances were 'walls of bronze and adamant to Attica' ? Triple wrongs ! Look at them. First, Euboea. Callias, of Chalcis, ungrateful for our prompt and generous rescue of Euboea from the grasp of Thebes, treacherously attempted to exterminate our forces at Tamynae ; and only our own gallantry saved us from the double disgrace of defeat at the hands of in- feriors. Pardoned, again he strove to strengthen Euboea against us for his own tyrannical ends, and became a friend of Philip. Cast out by him, he sought, and deserted, Thebes. Thus exposed to two fires, he formed the design of entrapping Athens in an alliance ; and this he obtained, thanks to the ' tyrant-hater ' De- mosthenes — who also, by his fine sentiments, relieved Chalcis of her subsidy and her attendance at Athens, and waived the tribute of ten talents due from Eretria and Oreus, forming, of all things, an Euboean synod ! Callias carried his design by bringing news of a wonderful Peloponnesian confederacy against Philip, ready with *men, money, and ships ; and Demosthenes backed his tale, xlii INTRODUCTION, adding Acarnania and a promised hegemony of Athens, and lying most circumstantially. T hen ji e pro duced his decree, longer than the Iliad, emptie r than his own speeches, or his own life, and fi lled only with hopes that wer ejva in~and armaments that were never to muster; and so you lost ten talents, getting in return [Decree read?^ phantom fleets and forces. Demosthenes secured three talents for the job, wringing the uttermost farthing from the impoverished Oreites. [Decree of Oreites read?^ This is Ctesiphon's ' patriot,' this his ' good man !' §§ 106-136. The third and worst period comprises his sacrilege against Del phi, and his ruinous alljgji cejwiiiL Thebes. ~~" ^ ListeiTto an account of the destruction of the impious Cirrhaeans, and the dedication of their lands to eternal desolation by Solon and the Amphictyons. \Aeschines here gives ihe account^ Hear the Oracle, the Oaths, and the Curse \which are here read]^ binding the Amphictyons to enforce the sentence for ever. In spite of all this, the Amphissians tilled the land, rebuilt the port, and exacted tolls, purchasing the home support of the deputies, especially Demosthenes, — who showed strongly, in this instance, that whatever private man, or potentate, or free community he has to do with, he involves each of them in irremediable disasters. When I went to Delphi, I found the Amphissians trumping up an old charge against us, to flatter Thebes. I grew angry, de- nounced their trespass vehemently [^Aeschi'nes here recounts his speech'], and moved the Amphictyons to lay waste the violated land anew. The president, Cottyphus, called a general assembly, and the permanent officers were instructed to prepare a resolu- tion. Demosthenes fraudulently prevented Athens from taking action, and unhappy Thebes stood aloof. The other Amphictyons proclaim war, under Cottyphus — Philip we must remember being in Scythia — and the Amphissians are fined, but fail to pay. A second war is begun, Philip having meanwhile returned.^ We should have taken the leadership, and signs and portents from heaven warned us to do so; but Demosthenes defied them, as he defied the omens at Chaeronea, and courted our doom, ilence //. THE TRIAL. xliii the strange dispensations of heaven in our time. Nothing un- hoped, nothing unexpected, that we have not seen! We have lived to starde posterity. The Persian king, breaker of moun- tains, bridger of seas, who demanded earth and water from the Hellenes, and claimed dominion from the rising to the setting sun, fights now for mere life against the champion of Delphi. Thebes, our neighbour Thebes, has in a single day been blotted out of Hellas — ^justly, perhaps, but her folly had no mere human origin. The Sparta ns, so litde sin ning, once leaders of the Hellenes, now fling themselves on the mercy of AlexandfiL. ^Atheris,_th£_asylum, the salvation of Greece, the courted of all^ now has to struggle for t he bare ^sgiJ Am L all this has _befallen us since Demosthenes came forward. Is not t hisJjhe„sinfuLjiian» ,,the bane oT nations,' s poken of by the prophe t Hesiod? §§ 1 37-1 51• Though he claims the Theban alliance as won by his own eloquence, many men, eminent, eloquent as he, and closely bound to Thebes, who tried to bring it about before, failed, but failed only through error of that city. It was Philip's advance which drove the Thebans iotQ. your arm s^,and_you helped them before a word was uttere^_byJ[)emosthenes^ What he did was to spoil the alliance in three^w_ays.__JFirst^_he_specially guaranteed all BoeotiaTto^hebes^ and made us incur two-thirds of the expense, yet enjoy no preeminence in the command — a fact you know but neglect. Secondly, he transferred the seat of our government to Thebes, turned autocrat, browbeat all opposition, embezzled pay, and, by dividing our forces, sacrificed ten thousand mercenaries at_Am phissa — thus pla ying into Philip's hands. Give villany power, and a people suffers ! Thirdly, when Philip, aware of his hazard, offered peace, and the experienced Boeotarchs were in- cHned to treat with him, Demosthenes, jealous lest others should finger Philip's gold — for life was intolerable, if there was a bribe he did not share — swore by the statue of Athene, which we might think Phidias designed specially for his perjuries, that he would hale to prison, by the hair, any advocate of peace, and would ask of Thebes a passage for Athenian troops to face the enemy alone. Thus he shamed the Boeotarchs into the field. So, a generation before, Cleophon led us to ruin. §§ 152-158. Then h e, the runaway, dared to pronounce the xliv INTRODUCTION. f uneral oration over the m en he had sent to their death ! Will you forget them, and crown him ? Come with me, in imagination, to the theatre. Fancy you see the herald advancing to make the proclamation; and ask yourselves if the bereaved will shed as many tears over the coming tragedy, as over the unkindness of the City. What cultured Hellene will not suffer a pang, when he but re- members that, in the good old times, the herald would bring forward the children of the brave dead, clad in panoply, and, uttering his soul-stirring words, conduct them to the seats of honour ? while now, as he leads on the maker of orphans — no ! Truth will ring through his formula, crying that here we give a crown of virtue to a villain, a crown of valour to a coward ! Men of Athens, erect not a trophy against yourselves by the altar of Dionysus ! Convict not the people of madness ! Do not rend the hearts of the Theban exiles whom you shelter ! Picture their sufferings — the sack of their city, the demolition of their walls, the burning of their homes. See wives and children dragged to slavery, old men and old women too late unlearning freedom, all supplicating you, in tears of agony and wrath, not to crown the bane of Greece, whose counsel has ever brought ruin ! Shall a ferryman who has but o nce lost ajb oat be dismissed^ jet he w.ho.has wrecked all Hellas sJilLpilot-youjL State ? §§ 159-167. After Chaeronea he fled in a trireme; but was recalled by tidings of Athens' escape from destruction. For a time he lived in obscurity. Philip's death brought him out exultant. 'Alexander was Margites, would stay in Macedon and philosophize. Valour wants blood.' Yet he dared not perform his duty as am- bassador to this Alexander in the camp at Thebes, but made dis- graceful terms with him through a low boy, Aristion. He had three further chances of showing his warlike temper against Alexander. One, when that prince crossed to Asia. He was dumb. Again, when Alexander was in desperate straits in Cilicia. He only dangled his letters, made jocular threats against me, and — waited for a better opportunity. Lastly, Alexander was at the world's end, and Antipater was slow in gathering forces to meet Sparta, Elis, Achaea, and Arcadia, all revolted and triumphant. You only gave us vile and portentous metaphors, performed antics on //. THE TRIAL. xlv the platform, and boasted that you had raised Laconia and Thessaly. You ? §§ 168-176. Do you pretend to be a popular statesman? A popular statesman should be a pure-born freeman, of patriotic lineage, of good .conduct — profligacy means dishonesty — of good judgment, eloquent, and brave. An oligarch is the reverse of this. Which is Demosthenes } His father was a freeman, but his mother a daughter of the traitor and oudaw Gylon, by a Scythian wife, the marriage being, in fact, irregular. Hence his treachery, hence his barbarian villany. Having squandered his patrimony, he turned speech-writer, and betrayed his clients. Losing his custom, he became public orator, still dissipating the money acquired in this profession, — though Persian gold at present keeps him afloat. About his purity the less said the better. His speeches are specious, but bad in their results. His courage• — he admits his cowardice, in spite of the fact that a coward is subjected by Solon to legal degradation, and may never be crowned. So much for Demosthenes as a popular statesman. §§ 177-190. Crowns? Men of Athens, I warn you against these vain distinctions. In old times, when these were rare, men were great, the city grand : now these are matters of course, and we — sadly to lack. Would old athletes have trained if wreaths could have been jobbed? Do we now train hard? Curtail dis- tinctions, you multiply merit — multiply them, and you demoralize. Contrast the victors Themistocles and Miltiades, the liberators who came from Phylae, the just Aristides, with the runaway, the oligarch, the lawless Demosthenes — though I should not mention him on the same day with them. Had they crowns ? None, but the undying gratitude of a high-minded people. Rewards ? J The conquerors at the Strymon did ask and receive a reward — three Hermae, bearing inscriptions that contained no names. What did Miltiades get ? A place in the fresco in the porch. What were the wages of Thrasybulus and his comrades ? Olive-wreaths, and ten drachmae each for religious purposes. \ Contrast the decree then passed with Ctesiphon's. [Decrees read?[ / xlvi INTRODUCTION, These comparisons he will decline, and tell us that Philammon was not pitted against Glaucus. Yes, skill in wrestling may be relative : virtue is absolute. §§ 1 9 1-2 1 4. What was the glory of the liberators? To have vindicated the laws. Then, as my aged father was wont to tell me, breaches of the constitution were rigorously tried and minutely investigated, ^ce Demosthenes appeared, our courts are lax, ^cases are turned upside d own and decided on irrelevant issues or evil precedents. Once Cephalus could pride himself, not like Γ Aristophon, on seventy-five acquittals, but that he was never prose- l* τ cuted. Once friends would indict friends — even Thrasybulus was convicted by Archinus. There were no beggings- off then, nor should there be now. In obvious breaches of the law all pleadings should be confined to mitigation of the penalty. Moreover advo- cates are unnecessary — in Demosthenes' case, dangerous. Keep Ctesiphon to the point, and, if Il£aiosthenesj»ast^be~heard, make him adopt the same order as I have done — first, the two legal pomis, then "hi^ merits or he""wiir trick you. Do not let him rip up old party wounds, but tell him he is no democrat. Doubt his oaths, and if he bewail his condition, bid him weep for that of the State from which he has detached himself. What is this case to him } Let him take his crown, should he get it, with deprecation. If it be denied him, fear not, lest, in grand chagrin, he slay himself — he only bruises himself, or suff'ers bruises from Midias, for money. Of Ctesiphon I will say no more than that he and Demosthenes are a pair of scoundrels, who know one another too well to be comfortable. §§ 215-228. Demosthenes intends to vilify all my actions, and even my inaction — though I am not ashamed of them — and to accuse me of instituting this trial to court Alexander. ' Why did I not oppose his measures if they were bad ?' I am an inde- pendent politician, and speak when I feel called. You are dumb when you are feed, noisy when you have spent : and you speak at the bidding of your paymasters. This suit was laid before your miraculous revelation of Philip's death, and I bring it fonvard — I //. THE TRIAL, xlvii I may do so, in a free state — when I think proper. You will say, I never accused you. Is Amphissa forgotten, is Euboea, is your filching of a whole fleet when you were naval minister } Then the danger ! You slew your host Anaxinus, and brazened it out ; not to mention your forgeries, and the arrests and tortures of your victims. You intend to compare me to a bad physician, prescribing too late. You were worse : you caused the disease, and nullified our remedies. After Chaeronea, too, we had other things to think of than accusing you. When, however, you had the face to ask for a crown, I could bear no longer, but set my veto on the proposal. Then he will compare my eloquence to the deadly music of the Sirens, — how inappropriate a comparison from the lips of a mere man of words ! §§ 230-235. Is the decree constitutional? Shall not a profligate like Ctesiphon be punished 1 Will you crown Demosthenes, who has discrowned you ? What if a dramatist should crown Thersites t Hellas will hiss you. Will you crown the author of your disgrace ? You punish false judgments in the games : will you pass one yourselves in national matters, weaken the constitution, and set a man above the law — for nothing ? It is mere luck that your demagogues are not tyrants, hke the Thirty, whose footsteps they follow. §§ 236-260. WliaL-are__Cemosjhenes' merits.? He poorly for- tifiedjJTg^citjii-a^ainst a siege which he Jiimself invited. To credit h imwit hjhje Theban alliance is to deceive the ignorant and insult the informed. The Thebans, like the Persian king, sought us only in their own dire need ; and Demosthenes kept the royal gold, when a fraction would have bought back the Cadmea, and won over the Arcadians. Can we tolerate self-praise from a man who is the dishonour of his city } Defend yourself, Ctesiphon : you are orator enough. Are Demosthenes' merits so weak that an advocate must help you "i It was not so with Chabrias, Iphicrates, Timotheus. We reckon the material instruments of homicide as unclean : shall the corrupt coward and murderer be honoured .? Think of the insult to the xlviii INTRODUCTION. dead, the discouragement to the living, the evil effect on the young. You, judges, are on your trial ; Athens is on hers. Do not stamp with your approval self-styled patriots, who are filching your con- stitution, who carry on treasonable correspondence, yet to whom the people, like a dotard, surrenders its conduct. The traitor who sailed for Samos was slain, the coward who fled to Rhodes barely escaped death. Will you not punish this political pirate to save our name in Hellas .? Your duty is to be just. Use your own eyes : who are his supporters } ^JThe friends of a manly youth ? His was a boyhood of intrigue. Is he Persuasion itself, that you should believe the tales of his political exploits ? Against the partners of his crimes see arrayed Solon, the fount of Law, Aristides, the type of Justice, and with them Themistocles and all the Heroism of the Median wars ! Earth, Sun, Virtue, Intelligence, Moral Culture, bear me witness ! I have come to the rescue, I have spoken : if well and fittingly, 'twas my wish; if inadequately, 'twas my best. Think of all I have said, or should have said, and give a judgment right and wholesome to your country.' J The Speech of Demosthenes. After a formal plea had been entered by Ctesiphon, Demo- sthenes delivered his reply, of which the following is an outline. Dem. de Cor. §§ i-i i. \ ' Men of Athens, I pray that my constant loyalty may win me a kin^nd impartial hearing from you, and that I may be allowed to choose for myself the method of my defence. I am at a disadvantage, compared with my opponent, both because I fight for higher stakes than he, and because, while he plays the part of accuser, which is always sure of interesting an audience, he has thrust upon me the odious duty of praising myself. If, in doing so, I tire you, for that you must blame the prosecutor. You will all admit that I am even more concerned in this suit than Ctesiphon, for I risk the loss of your good-will ; and there- fore I entreat of you to remember your oaths, and listen with impartiality to my just pleas, before you come to a verdict, which, I trust in heaven, will be worthy of your character. //. THE TRIAL. xlix I must first clear the case of the irrelevancies with which my opponent has distorted it. If his abuse of my private history be true, condemn me at once. But if you think me a better man than he is, then disbelieve his charges as a whole. I intend to deal principally with his libels on my pubUc Hfe, and then perhaps I may have something to say about his ribaldry. §§ 1 2-16. The prosecution is'on the face of it self-condemned, both by its obvious malice, futility, unfairness, lateness and incon- sistency; and as a cowardly attack on a third person, instead of a straightforward settlement of our personal hostilities. § 17. False as the charges are seen to be, I must examine them singly, especially those in connection with the Peace and the Embassy ; and, to do so, I must remind you of the political circum- stances of the times to which I refer. §§ 18-24. The divisions and jealousies among the Greek states, when the Phocian war began, made Philip's opportunity. By lavish use of gold he flung the Greeks into domestic chaos, and took advantage of the mistakes which ensued. When the Thebans were at length worn out by the war, he prevented their union with us by promising them help and off'ering us peace. The ignorance and cowardice of the Greeks at large drove you to come to terms with him. That ruinous peace was none of my making, but was brought about by your partner, Aeschines, the corrupt Philocrates, and by the members of the party of inaction. Still Aeschines declares that, besides being responsible for that peace, I prevented Athens from forming it in concert with her allies. Why then did he not oppose me ? Nor in fact were any negotiations with our allies still in progress. We had already found them wanting. To have called them to arms, while we were treating with Philip, would have been dishonourable. To have called them to make peace with him would have been ridiculous: they were all at peace with him already. Thus I stand clear of all responsibility in this matter. τ §§ 25-30. Compare my conduct with that of Aeschines after the peace. Γ knew that Philip was active in his aggressions d 1 INTRO D UCTIQN. against the city, and that he must be sworn before he had taken your important possessions in Thrace. I proposed a decree that our ambassadors should proceed at once to administer the oaths to him, a decree which Aeschines deUberately ignores — though he misrepresents my simple courtesy in providing Philip's envoys with free seats in the theatre. No, Aeschines, it was not my duty to secure a few obols from them, while selling, as you have sold, our national interests. Λ J [Decree read^ In spite of this decree, three months were wasted, and Philip was master of Thrace, before he swore to the peace. §§ 31-41. Philip now secured a second advantage from our corrupt ambassadors, namely, that they should remain away till he was ready to march on Phocis, lest Athens, hearing of his approach in time, should man Thermopylae, and block his way. In his anxiety he condescended even to hire Aeschines, to make in his name false promises of the benefits he was about to confer on us, and the heavy blow he was going to deal to Thebes. So his way was left open. "To show what came of these promises, listen to the decree which you passed in your alarm, when Philip destroyed the Phocians, and to the letter in which he announced this act. [Decree and letter read^ You see how Philip won over the Thessalians and Thebans, and how he tricked you. Yet Aeschines, his agent in all this, ventures to-day to draw pathetic pictures, of the present miseries of Thebes and Phocis ! §§ 42-49.1 After the close of the Sacred War, Philip was enthusiastically supported by Thebes and Thessaly, while you and the other Hellenes suffered from his aggressions, but could not break the peace. Philip went to conquer the Illyrians and Tri- balUans. Traitors flocked to him from all parts. At length the indolence and the blindness of the Hellenic states were rewarded by the loss of their Hberties. The traitors too received the due recompense of their labours from their master. They now wander over the whole world, despised and homeless outlaws. And, but //. THE TRIAL. li for the fact that Athens was saved by her patriotic statesmen, Aeschines and his sympathisers would be in the same plight. §§ 5o~52• Forgive me for this recital : Aeschines has laid his own crimes to my charge, and I was obliged to clear myself of them, as there are many here who do not remember the events. I admit that the tale of his hireling service is disagreeable. This, by the way, he calls friendship, and complains that I reproach him with the friendship of Alexander. I should be the last man to do so ; I call him hireling. Let Aeschines hear whether you think him the hireling or the friend of Philip and Alexander ! "1 §§ 53-59• I wi^^ i^ow deal with the indictment, [Indictment read?^ and follow its order of topics. The statement that I did and said what was best for Athens, and should therefore be crowned, must be examined in the light of my public life. The proposal to crown me, while I was still an accountable officer, belongs partly to the same subject ; but will also require me to produce the laws which protect the proposer. It will be necessary for me to enter upon inter- Hellenic affairs, in order to justify my political conduct, for it was with these that I concerned myself. §§ 60-72. Philip started with a great advantage. Greece was ull of traitors, by whose employment he was able to aggravate her intestine feuds. Amid the divisions of the states, and their ignorance of the danger that threatened them, what was I, who was charged with the foreign policy of Athens, to advise her to do .? To forget her dignity, and, like the Thessalians, help Philip to dominion over Hellas, or at least to connive, like the Pelopon- nesians, at his designs? Nay, these very peoples have suffered more than we, and have almost lost their political existence. But what should Athens have done ? What should I have proposed ? I knew that in all our history we had been the champions of Pan- Hellenic liberty. I saw that our antagonist, Philip, would stop at no sacrifice in the quest of supremacy. Were the men of Athens to surrender their freedom to the man of Pella ? No, you with- stood him, and I was your counsellor. Aeschines says that, by dwelling on Philip's wrong-doings in the Aegean, I hurled the city d 2 Hi INTRODUCTION, into war. It is not true, and I will say nothing of them now. But look at his acts in Euboea and Megara, as well as in the Hellespont. Were these not violations of the peace .? Was Hellas to have no defender and fall an unresisting prey .? If so, Athens has done wrong, and I am the guilty cause. But if there was a cry for helpy who should have responded but Athens .? Such was my policy J §§ 73~82. That Philip broke the peace by the seizure of our vessels can be proved by the decrees of that time, none of which however were proposed by me. [Decrees readJ] Show me any decree of mine leading to hostilities. I am not blamed even by Philip. [Letter of Philip read.'\ Why .•* To name me would have been to call attention to his own crimes, which I constantly withstood. I confronted him in his attempts both on the Peloponnese and on Euboea; I de- spatched the squadrons which rescued the Chersonese and By- zantium from his hands ; and thus I won for Athens crowns from the grateful Hellenes whom she saved, and awoke even in those who refused to be succoured admiration, amid their miseries, for her prophetic power. W^hat gold would Philip have given to have escaped these reverses ? Aeschines, the host of his envoys, knows best of all. And yet he dares to say that I am dumb when I receive a fee, and noisy when it is spent. It is different with him : he is noisy while he retains his fee. §§ 83-94. For my services I received a crown, proposed in just the same" manner as that proposed by Ctesiphon. [Decree of Aristonicus read.'\ This distinction of mine brought no harm to Athens of the sort prophesied by Aeschines, and is a proof of the value of my services. Byzantium was important to you as commanding your corn-supply. When, therefore, that city was besieged by Philip, you at once sent relief, and I was responsible for advice to that effect. .The advantage you reaped from this act was demonstrated by the plenty which you enjoyed in a time of war, a time of I //. THE TRIAL. liii greater comfort than the present peace which these traitors — Heaven thwart their designs ! — uphold. [Decrees of Byzantines and peoples of the Chersonese, CONFERRING CROWNS ON Athens, here read.] L Such was the effect of my policy, but it did more. It showed the nobleness of Athens in strong contrast with the baseness of Philip, and it proved that Athens would not desert even those who sinned against her in their hour of peril. "? §§ 95-101. To point out the falsehood of Aeschines' libels upon Euboea and Byzantium would be superfluous. But to show their meanness, let me recall one or two of the great acts of Athens, done in your time. During the Spartan autocracy, broken as our city was, you marched out to Haliartus and to Corinth, forgetting your grievances against Corinth and Thebes, and fully alive to the danger. You and your fathers knew, indeed, that death closes all; but believed that something, ere the end, should be done by men of worth. So, when Thebes was supreme, and would have destroyed your old foe, Lacedaemon, you set your veto on that also, letting the world know that your anger fades when an enemy is in extremities. Yet again, you rescued Euboea from the Thebans, and scrupulously restored the cities to the very men who had wronged you. When the issue touched ourselves, was I to sully these and a thousand more such precedents ? §§ 102-109. I>Iy next act was the reform of your navy, which — to the great detriment of your operations abroad — was in a state of decay. In spite of the offers of enormous bribes, and in face of an indictment, [Document read.] I divided the trierarchic burden so fairly between the rich and the poor [Old Schedule and New Schedule read.] that no one made a complaint, and I secured the complete efficiency of your fleet. These instances, and I need quote no more, prove that my home and foreign policies were alike liberal and honest, and had the same end, namely, what was best for Athens and for Hellas. liv ^ INTRODUCTION, §§ 1 10-125. It remains to speak of the legal points. I admit that I was an "accountable servant of the state. But there is no law to call me to account for my free gifts. You have crowned others during their term of office for special acts of generosity. [Decrees conferring Crowns read^\ If I was guilty of misconduct in my office, why did not Aeschines protest at my audits ? In the bill of Ctesiphon [Bill of Ctesiphon read?^ all he attacks is the grateful return to be made for my gifts, the acceptance of which he allows to be quite constitutional. Is it CQiistitutioftal-4o_ja£cepJ_a_giftj, unconstitutional to thank the giver? A villainous doctrine ! Proclamations in the theatre may be counted by the thousand, and are for the national good, as they provoke emulation in patriotism. They are quite legal, if sanctioned by the assembly. [Law quotedi] Shall Aeschines be allowed to garble the laws, to bring suits founded only on malice, and to occupy the courts of law with abuse instead of accusation .? Never has he attacked me directly, but only does so now, when the city is implicated with me. He poses as my enemy : really he is the enemy of his country. §§ 126-138. Who is he to use hard words — harder than would have fallen from the lips of a stern Judge of the Dead ? A hack. How dare he speak of moral culture — he, the son of a slave and a prostitute ? But enough. Look at his career. In return for the promotion you gave him, he has served your foes. / He would have saved the incendiary, Antiphon, but for the Areopagus, which body, as I can prove, [Depositions read.'] removed him, as a traitor, from the office of your advocate at Delos. Again, when Philip's mouthpiece, Pytho, assailed our honour, Aeschines bore false witness against his country. Further he is known [Witnesses produced.'] to have held nightly meetings with Anaxinus, the spy — himself a //. THE TRIAL.. Iv born spy. I could say more : but your delight in litigious debate makes you careless of your interests, and a treacherous calum- niator is safer than a constant patriot. §§ 139-144. His cooperation with Philip, before the war, was infamous. During the war, did he propose any wholesome decree.? None. Therefore, either he could not improve on my measures, or he was in the pay of the enemy. None so active, however, when a mischief could be done us. Look at the havoc he wrought by creating the war at Amphissa. Of that crime he can never clear himself. I detected him instantly — I stake my happiness upon it; and I speak so solemnly, because I fear, though my demonstrations lie among your archives, lest you should think him., as you thought him before, when his false reports brought the Phocians to destruction, inadequate to cause evils so immense. The war at Amphissa, which let Philip into Greece, was the work of Aeschines. When I tried to warn you at the time, you thought my protests were factitious, and my voice was drowned. Listen now, and learn the astuteness of Philip. §§ 145-159. He suffered considerably from the war, in spite of the failures of our generals. His whole commerce was stopped by privateers. Attica was impregnable by sea. His one hope therefore was to win over Thebes and Thessaly against us. This could not be done directly ; it was necessary to inveigle them into some common cause. So he hired Aeschines, who, as an Athe- nian, would pass unsuspected. Aeschines got himself elected sacred deputy, went to Delphi, and worked the Amphictyons into an excitement against Amphissa by accusing that State of sacri- legious trespass. He says he was provoked to this by the Am- phissians bringing a charge against Athens : but no such charge was brought. The sacred deputies, while beating the bounds of the Delphic demesne, were roughly handled. War was declared on Amphissa. Amphictyonic forces assembled, but did nothing. At length, thanks to treacherous intrigue, the conduct of the war was given over to Philip. He came southward, in response to the call, and — occupied Elatea! What would have befallen us had I not gained the alliance of Thebes ? [Amphictyonic Decrees and dates read^ Ivi INTRODUCTION, You see from Philip's letter [Letter read^ that he puts forward pretexts which are wholly Amphictyonic. Who gave him these? Aeschines, the chief among the many traitors who have ruined Greece. §§ 160-168. At this juncture, when Greece was blind to the dangers foreboded by Philip's advance, I was careful, following the best precedents, to keep a watchful eye on our relations with Thebes, in order to prevent that open rupture which the hirelings of Macedon were trying to effect. [Decrees and Correspondence with Thebes read^ So hopeless did any union between Thebes and Athens appear, at the moment when Philip secured Elatea. / §§ 169-195. [You remember the night of bewilderment which followed the arrival of the news — ^your hurried meeting in assembly at daybreak — the long suspense, when the voice of the country called in vain for counsel. I at last rose, and laid bare Philip's scheme, which I had long studied. Thebes, I said, was not wholly at his beck, and he had taken Elatea that his show of arms might overawe the Theban friends of freedom. If we remember our old bickerings with Thebes, all her parties will unite in a general philippism. What must we do .? Defend the frontier, prepare help for Thebes, which is in greater danger than we, and offer her alliance with a generosity worthy of Athens. After saying this and moving a decree, I devoted myself to the situation and per- formed my duties to the full, and more than my duties. Nick- name me what you will, Aeschines, I served my country, when you, with all your airs, were useless. [Decree of Demosthenes read^ This decree began our reconciliation with Thebes, and our danger passed away like a cloud. I gave my best services in the hour of need, like an honest counsellor — not waiting in silence that I might later carp at the measures of others. Was not my advice for the best ? Let any, who can, better it even to-day. In what particular was I wanting ? It is my principle, my efforts that you must regard, not the final issue of events — that is ordered by Heaven. You could not blame a shipmaster, if his vessel, being well fitted, failed to ride, without some loss, the storm which it was //. THE TRIAL, Ivii not his to control. If we suffered so much, when we had Thebes to shelter us — what, if she had joined the foe ? The final battle filled us with consternation, when it was fought at a distance of three days' journey — what, if it had been fought at our own gates ? Thank God, and thanks to the Theban alliance, we were saved that. §§ 196-210. All this I recapitulate for your information. Aeschines may be reduced by a simple dilemma. If he foresaw the future, why did he not enlighten us .? If he did not foresee the future, he cannot blame my blindness. I did all I could, he — nothing. Now he tries to make capital out of our misfortunes, and proves his treachery by the action and inaction of his whole life. I will go so far as to affirm, that, had we known what course events would take, still honour obliged us to resist Philip, as we did resist him. Athens has been often tempted to betray Greece for her own aggrandisement : but she never forsook the path of honour. Wit- ness the Athenians of the days of Themistocles ! They rightly and nobly held that servitude was worse than death. I do not dream that I created such sentiments in you : they have been ever yours, and I was but your servant. If you obey my opponent — who, to steal a wreath from me, would rob you of immortal glory — if you condemn my client because my measures failed, then you have suffered because you erred. Erred, when you fought for the liberties of Hellas ? No, by all the heroes of Marathon and Plataea and Salamis and Artemisium ! They all lie in the pubHc tombs — all, Aeschines, not the victorious only. Tell me then, sir actor of third parts, when I came forward to counsel my country how to play the first part, was I to forget and dishonour the past ? You too, judges, have a duty towards the past, and, in deciding public suits, like this, you must lift your eyes to the high ordinances of your ancestors. ^ §§ 2 1 1-2 1 7. To return. When we, your ambassadors, reached Thebes, we found the prospect gloomy, as our first despatch informed you. For any improvement brought about by our diplomacy Aeschines will allow me no credit, although he lays wholly at my door the failures of your generals in the field! [Despatch read.\ Philip's representatives spoke first, calling upon the Thebans to Iviii INTRODUCTION. show their gratitude to him and satisfy their vengeance on you, by lending active aid or, at least, by granting him a passage ; and they warned them of the danger of listening to us. Would that I dare repeat to you our answer — but time, like a deluge, sweeps away your interest in bygone things. Yet hear what a favourable response we won from the Thebans. [Reply of Thebans read^ So you went in force, were warmly welcomed by the Thebans — to whom you showed yourselves models of sobriety, discipline, and courage — and, by their side, gained those triumphs which got you so much gratitude, and which you celebrated so joyfully. If Aeschines rejoiced at them with us, why does he find fault now ? If he stayed moodily indoors, what does he deserve ? [Decrees of Sacrifices read^ §§ 218-226. With so happy a revolution of our fortunes contrast the agonised letters sent by Philip to the Peloponnese, that you may see what my persistent diplomacy and my goings to and fro, and my disparaged decrees, achieved for you. You have had many great statesmen, but none who ever made himself solely responsible for a course of policy and assumed its whole management : I, however, was so impressed with the mag- nitude of our danger, that I saw no chance to spare myself, and took every duty which I felt I was specially qualified to fulfil. [Philip's Letters read^ To this I reduced him, and deserved the crown I received. [Decrees of Coronation read^ These decrees were attacked, but absolved, though identical in terms with that of Ctesiphon. Why did not Aeschines assail them, before they passed into precedents? Because, when the facts were fresh, he dared not do, as he does now — produce a mass of musty chronicles and garbled decrees, falsify dates and motives, and ask you to conduct a rhetorical tournament in place of a critical enquiry into questions of national importance. §§ 227-231'. He has tried to mislead you by a sophistical fallacy, bidding you forget your formed opinions, and treat facts like figures that may be cancelled. Thus he overreaches himself, for //. THE TRIAL, lix he virtually admits that your opinion is favourable to me. But he is guilty of injustice also. The method of history is not arithmetical. The results of my policy — -the _ conversion of Thebe"s_ and .Luboea .,and Βγζΐϊήΐίύΐη from foes into allies — are deeds that_ cannot be un- done and should be memorable for ever. And it was the strength ' you thus acquired that"~acCuunted for Philip's show of moderation in dealing with Athens. §§ 232-243. A fair critic would not mock my mannerisms — can it be that on them hinged the fortune of Hellas ? — but would in- quire into facts, asking what were the means and forces of Athens when I became her minister, and what I afterwards made them ; and on such an enquiry his verdict would rest. Athens, then, had in her alliance only the weakest of the islands, yielding a subsidy of five and forty talents (and that was over- drawn), but not a heavy-armed or mounted soldier beyond her home forces ; and she had nothing more. Look at Philip. Ab- solute commander of a large standing army, irresponsible, pos- sessed of unlimited wealth — such was the foe I confronted, my sole resource the poor privilege of speech, which was as freely open to his hirelings as to me, and often used by them with ruinous effect. Thus unfairly matched, I won the alliance of Euboea, Achaea, Corinth, Thebes, Argos, Megara, Leucadia, Corcyra, acquiring thence .fifteen thousand auxiliaries and two thousand horse, besides their citizen forces : and I also procured very large sums of money. Aeschines spoke of strict justice in our terms with Thebes and others. He does not know that, of the famous three hundred triremes that fought against the Persian, two hundred came from Athens, and she did not feel aggrieved, but glad that she could do twice as much as the other Hellenes for the deliver- ance of all. Nor dared I chaffer, when Philip was in the market. What would these calumniators have said, had my hard-bargaining driven these cities into Philip's alliance .ί* That I had ruined Athens by sea and land. Base and malignant, Aeschines, as are all such creatures, you are but a counterfeit presentment of man or orator. Would a physician be heard, who never prescribed till his patient was laid in the tomb ? Are you so mad as to open your lips to-day after what is past ? Ix INTRODUCTION, §§ 244-247. Aeschines gloats over the defeat. In the wordy battles I had to fight with Philip's ambassadors, I was everywhere victorious. True, he retrieved such losses by armed force, and for that Aeschines crassly blames me. But my province was not generalship. All an orator's responsibility I accept. Ought I to have watched the growth of the situation, and given timely warning ? I did. Should I have checked and counteracted the constitutional errors of the State .? That also I did. With Philip's armies it was not mine to cope : but on the battle-ground of corruption against incorruptibihty, I ever repelled his advances. Thus, in all that concerned me, there has been no defeat. §§ 248-251. Such are some of the justifications I afforded for the proposal of Ctesiphon. The people added others. When, in the midst of the panic that followed the battle, they might pardon- ably have been angered with me, all their measures of defence were directed by my decrees, and they elected me special Corn- Commissioner. Still further, when my enemies made incessant and furious attempts, in every court, to get a conviction against me, I was ever acquitted, thanks to Heaven, and to your sense of justice. Did not all this justify Ctesiphon.? Aeschines may say that Cephalus was never put on his trial. He was fortunate. But why is my case worse than his? I was never convicted of the least misdemeanour, and was never even indicted by Aeschines. / §§ 252-256. The heartlessness of my opponent appears strik- mgly in his remarks about fortune. To reproach a fellow-man with a thing so changeable is, indeed, folly: I will answer him, I trust in a better tone. Athens is fortunate, but mankind now suffers from adversity, and she has had her share of disaster. Her good fortune, however, has enabled her, by following the path of right, to fare better than those states which thought to secure their own felicity by betraying her. The fortunes of single men must be judged from their private histories. To say that my poor fortune overruled the grand destiny of the State is ridiculous. If Aeschines and I must necessarily compare our private for- tunes, I will do so, though not frivolously. I shall fall into no //. THE TRIAL, Ixi absurd pride of wealth or contempt of poverty. But he has driven me to contrast our careers, which I will do with all possible ^ moderation. §§ 257-269. As a boy, my education and my means were respect- able. In youth I was backward in no honourable competition. As a public man, I diose a policy which brought me honours, and, at least, was never called dishonourable even by my worst enemies. jt I plume myself on nothing of this. You, the man of pride, spent *' your childhood as helper of your father, a school drudge, your boyhood in assisting in your mother's contemptible mummeries, your early manhood as petty scribe, then as third actor in a miser- able dramatic company, your prime in the occupation of a timid traitor. I will not dwell on the fact that our previous lives have been, at every stage, in strong contrast. To-day, / risk the loss of a crown, you run the risk of being punished for treachery. My fortune has been bad, yours good? Recite your old stage harangues, Λvhile I call the witnesses of my acts of liberality, [Depositions read?\ and yet not all of these. I am content with my general repute. §§ 270-275. But I would escape from personalities. I will con- fess that if there be a people beneath the sun that has not suffered from Macedon, I am guilty; if however all mankind has suffered, then the fault must lie in the general ill-fortune of the world. You, Aeschines, lay the blame on me, though you have as much to answer for yourself. I spoke, with no special authority, in a free assembly, of which you also were a member : and you failed to improve on my counsels. Their non-success was due to no crime or blunder of mine, and was a disappointment, to be shared by all, even — on your own confession — by you, my accuser. §§ 276-284. Then this honest speaker bids you beware of my rhetorical skill ! All I have of such skill — and indeed the power of an orator is measured by the welcome received from the audience — has ever been put forth to promote your national in- terests, never, like his, for selfish and malicious ends. Nor were these courts built as a theatre for personal encounters. His coming here, unprovoked by any crime on my part, to discharge I Ixii INTRODUCTION, an elaborate tirade of abuse, is an epitome of wickedness and cowardice. He treats the occasion as meant merely for a display of declamation. Not the vocal talent of an orator, but his hearty and unselfish sympathy with the nation, is here esteemed. That sympathy I have always cherished : he, never — he, who tricked his country by false declarations, and called by tHe name of friendship his hireling service to Philip. Does he think that you have for- gotten, or that you do not know him for what he is — a traitor ? I §§ 285-293. My countrymen showed their respect for me by appointing me to deliver the funeral oration over the slain, reject- ing Aeschines and all of his party, and neglecting their vehement protests. Why? Because those men were felt to be old foes, newly unmasked ; because they had joined in the revels- of the blood-stained victor ; and also because it was known that the cause in which our brave dead had fallen was so dear to no man as to me. The very epitaph then inscribed upon the tomb [Epitaph read^ demonstrates the shamelessness of Aeschines in laying to my charge a dispensation of heaven — for which may heaven punish him ! His tones, too, were joyful — that fact alone proves him no patriot — when he spoke of the disaster, and when he affirmed that I was solely responsible for your resistance to the foe. Would that such an honour were really mine ! Yet, to gratify his spite against me, he thus disparages the greatest of your glories. §§ 294-296. He crowned his libels with the astounding state- ment that / coquetted with Philip ! If we enquire seriously, who Philip's creatures were, they are found to be the men in the various Hellenic states who resembled, not me, but Aeschines. The whole day would be too short to enumerate their names ; but they were all alike — parasites, ministers of evil, mutilators of their countries, who toasted away our liberties at Macedonian banquets, and wrecked the old Hellenic code of honour. §§ 297-305. From any part in such iniquity my policy saved both Athens and myself. Does he then ask, what are my claims to honour? These, that when all the Hellenic statesmen were //. THE TRIAL. Ixiii corrupt, I alone was incorruptible : that I fortified our city, not only with walls of stone, but with the bulwarks of powerful alliances : and that neither in calculations nor in preparations was I worsted by Philip. I fulfilled the duties of a patriotic minister, protecting our seaboard by the shelter of Euboea, our other frontiers with Boeotia and the Peloponnese, insuring the safety of the corn-route, and securing the most important Aegean states ; and all my measures were conceived justly, and carried out with integrity and diligence. If treachery, bad generalship, and the hand of fate ruined us, am /guilty ? Had the other states — had only Thessaly and Arcadia — possessed each but one statesman such as I was, Hellas had been saved ! [Lists of allies and forces read^ §§ 306-313. Had my plans succeeded, Athens would have been indisputably and justly supreme : as it is, her honour is safe. To do such acts as mine was the duty of a good citizen — not to trip up the patriot, not to court the foe, not to nurse private hatreds and silendy wait, and prepare, to overwhelm a victim. Your elaborate eloquence, Aeschines, should have borne fruit in national benefits. You have had many chances, to shine as a public bene- factor, but have taken none. What successful ^ mission, what addition to our m.aterial wealth, what wholesome reform, stands to your credit .? Not one. Have you even been loyal at heart ? Nay, when all contributed their utmost to save the city from destruction, you, out of your large means, gave nothing. It is only when mis- chief is to be done that you shine. None then so brilliantly — base. §§ 314-324. Lastly he speaks of the great and good of old. But let him not take advantage of your reverence for your past heroes, to show me in a bad light. Compare the living with the living. Because Athens is grateful for the good deeds of her ancient leaders, shall she be ungrateful for services rendered now ? And, indeed, my acts and measures have been conceived in the true spirit of the great men of old — who themselves, no doubt, were contrasted by detractors with heroes of a yet earlier age. I fall short of their standard : but who lives that reaches it ? Philammon would be no match for Glaucus : yet, as he vanquished his rivals, he received his crown. In the same way, pit me against Ixiv INTRODUCTION. any living statesman — I shrink from comparison with none. When the contest was in patriotism, I was ever victor; although, when subserviency to foreigners was required, I grant that I fell far behind such princely competitors as Aeschines and his fellows. But the two qualities of the worthy citizen — to maintain, when in office, the prestige of Athens, and at all times to preserve his loyalty — have ever been found in me. Neither fear nor any other inducement made me desert that with which, from the beginning of my public life, I bound myself up, the honour, the power, the glory of my native land. I do not smile at my country's woes, nor shudder at her successes, as do these apostates, who have their hopes abroad, and bid us, when our decline has exalted the foreigner, be careful that there come no change. Heaven ! reject their prayers ! If their hearts cannot be turned, destroy them utterly ! But unto us grant a lasting deliverance ! ' Comparison of the two Speeches. As the ancient orators were in the habit of publishing revised editions of their speeches, the question has arisen, how far we have the present speeches in the form in which they were delivered. Dissen believed that Aeschines made considerable alterations, after hearing Demosthenes ; that he omitted what he had said (cf. Dem. de Cor. 95) about the Byzantines, that he elaborated the passage about Euboea, introduced ' manifesta mendacia * into his account of the Theban alliance, and maliciously added topics referring to events which had occurred after he preferred his indictment. He believed, also, that Aeschines' apparent anticipations of points which Demosthenes would make, such as the illustration drawn from the crowning of the athlete Philammon (Aesch. c. Ct. § 190; Dem. de Cor. § 319), and the parable of the physician (Aesch. c. Ct. § 225; Dem. de Cor. § 243), were inserted in his speech when the trial was over. We may add that Aeschines was also right in anticipating that Demosthenes would attack his silence and inaction as well as his words and actions (Aesch. c. Ct. §§ 216, 217 ; Dem. de Cor. § 198). On the other hand, Aeschines was wrong in expecting (§ 54) that Demosthenes would divide his life into four periods ; and his //. THE TRIAL, Ixv further suppositions — in § 207, that Demosthenes would declare that truth ranked oligarchs round the prosecutor and democrats round the defendant ; in § 209, that he would bewail his own sad lot; in § 228, that he would compare Aeschines' eloquence to the music of the Sirens; and in § 257, that he would call on his advocates to bear him witness — are all falsified, for Demosthenes does none of these things. Aeschines, then, is as often wrong as he is right in his fore- stallings of the points of his antagonist. The theory of deliberate change in the published version of his speech leaves unexplained the retention of his unsuccessful forecasts. The most probable view is that there had been much gossip about the contest, that some of Demosthenes* disciples had let a few hints of their master's designs leak out, that unfounded rumours also flew abroad, and that Aeschines took advantage of all of these, and did his best to spoil in advance the eff"ect of the speech for the defence. He needed no rumours to lead him to fortify the weak points in his own case against the assaults of Demosthenes. Dissen also fancies that Demosthenes would not have had enough courage to put the plain question of § 52, or to administer the plain-spoken rebuke of § 138, to his audience on the trial. But, in the former case, he could be sure that his friends would be prompt with the right answer : and, as to the latter, from the beginning of his public life he had always been blunt when he spoke of the faults of his countrymen. Dissen's general doubt, ' Quis V. c. credat cum multis in locis refutentur quae Aeschines dixerat haec omnia sic elaborata fuisse ut nunc habentur?' is hardly pious in so devout an admirer of the orator. We may, then, be satisfied that we have both these speeches very much as they were spoken. Wit h a few exceptions^the^jner e facts and occurrences, on which Aeschines bases his case, are correctly given^his principle of attack bein gixather to impute false and^ish onest motives to his opponent , and prod uce a telling caricature of his political life, than to venture upon historical misstatements. His charge, how- ever (Aesch. c. Ct. § 67), that Demosthenes deliberately hurried on the assemblies in Elaphebolion, 346 b.c, refusing to wait for the return of the envoys who had been sent among the Greek states, e Ixvi INTRODUCTION, and excluding Cersobleptes from the treaty, is wholly untrue. The envoys, having been away eight months, had long ago sent in their reports : and, as a matter of fact, Cersobleptes was not excluded from the peace by Athens. The accusation, too, which (§ 1 1 6) he asserts the Amphissians to have laid against Athens, at Delphi, 339 b.c, is nowhere recorded : and if, as he states, it was laid in the Theban interest, it is inconceivable that Thebes took no part in the subsequent proceedings. With this falls the libel (§ 125), that Demosthenes was bribed by Amphissa to pre- vent Athenian action. His accounts (§§ 85 sqq.) of the trans- actions in Euboea in 342-341 b.c. are inconsistent with known history, and were made eleven years after the occasion. Lastly, his allegation (§ 222) that Demosthenes lessened the Athenian fleet by sixty-five fast cruisers is quite unsupported by evidence, and contrary to what we know of the effects of the naval reform of 340 B.C. Demosthenes, on the other hand, seems to strain a point when (§ 21) he afiirms that he took no part whatever in the conclusion of the peace of 346 b.c, and there is a little exag- geration in his complaint (§ 30) that the second embassy was idle for ' three whole months.* The legal view of the case was expounded by Aeschines most luminously and completely. He proved conclusively that Ctesiphon had violated both the spirit and the letter of the law. Demosthenes could not deny that he held office, for which he was still account- able, when it was proposed to crown him. H|s plea, that he was to be crowned, not for his administration, but fbrhisgiTts to the state, and Hs indignant denial that any tribun al existed to scrutinise acts of gene rosity, are^ inr^g^Ptent wif^ t^<^ t^rmg of Ctesiphon's bill, and simply amount to t he quibble anticipated and refuted by Aesc hines. Any bad magi strate _could escape through such a loo phole. Such a plea only ' shows the ex treme looseness of legal r easoning which was tolerated in Athenian courts* (Thirlwall) — a laxity of procedu re^vigoro usly denounced in _ Aeschines' speech. The citation of instances when crowns had been given to account- able officers is met by Aeschines' retort, that one illegality does not justify another. The same applies to the precedents, quoted in the defence, of coronations in the theatre — the prosecution having pointed out that these had been an abuse which had //. THE TRIAL. Ixvii necessitated a prohibitory statute. D emosthenes* doctrine , that the more public the proclamation the "^tte r— ^noL ibr the recipient, but for the donors of a crown — is mere ve rbiage. His only real defence rested on an excepting clause — probably taken, however, from the Dionysiac law, and, if so, applying only, as explained by Aeschines, to crowns given by foreign states. But if Demos thenes' legal arguments were weak, he was most adroit in choosing the right place tor them in his speech. They occur just after he had pleased and roused his audience by a glowing account of the victories which had won them lavish honours and thanks from the Hellespontine cities; and they are followed instantly by a storm of personalities which was sure to turn the attention of the soberest of Athenian hearers. However strongly Aeschines might dwell on the need for the vindication of Law, he knew, as well as Demosthenes who touched the technical issues so lightly, that what the Dionysiac statute said, or did not say, mattered little on that occasion. The real issue was personal and political. He had to carry a sentence of con- demnation on the public life of Demosthenes. He must have felt this to be hopeless. Often, indeed, in the )after port ion of his speech, he almost implies that the crow fi ^'^^^ ^^ ronfprrprl ; and in his peroration there is a tone of dissatisfaction with the effort he has just concluded. His consciousness of his failure betrays itself also in the virulent m alice of his attac ks upo n his rival. The best passages of hisspeech are his denunciations of the mischief done by the indiscriminate lavishing of public rewards. His sarcasm, too, is often scathing. Yet, splendid as is his rhetoric, it is occasionally overdone: some of his declamations tend to sink into bathos; and his appeals to his audience to transport themselves to other scenes by an effort of imagi- nation, grow monotonous. Then he is always on his own defence. He has to explain his own silence in the past, and does so lamely. He justifies his conduct at Delphi at the expense of his judgment. His royal friendships he tries to ignore. This constant necessity for self-defence also leads him into irrelevancies. In general, his argumentation is logically imperfect, and often follows the fallacy post hoc er^o propter hoc. Further, he can only criticise de- tails^ the policy of his opponent, and does so on mean grounds. Ixviii INTRODUCTION. Very few proofs are adduced, as he deals chiefly in bare assertions. But he uses argument far less than abuse and vilification, and he is certainly an expert in that art. His signal weakness, however, is that he had no alternative policy to recommend, and that ' he dared not show his colours' (Jebb) — Macedonian or anti-Macedonian. He ca n only work on the most ignoble passions o f his hearers, and urge them to make Demosthenes a victim of th e^ burning resentment inspired by their present humiliat ions and distresses. The reply of Demosthenes is a monument of close and elabo- rate reasoning. He sharply stigmatises the character of the prose- cution, and dismisses almost contemptuously all the irrelevancies imported into the case by his opponent. He carefully builds up an historical framework to support his demonstrations, and at each point he strictly proves his statements by the production of evidence. To the great breach in Aeschines' encampment, his own career, Demosthenes recurs again and again, his arguments ever leading to the one conclusion, that Aeschines was a traitor. On the other hand, in his survey of the period in which he himself directed Athenian affairs, he showed, step by step, that his policy was not only the best, but the only one open to Athens, whose present condition compared favourably with the condition of those Hellenes who had been lukewarm in the cause of freedom, or had sided with the foe. He fully admitted that his ministrations had failed to secure, as they were intended to secure, the supre- macy of his city : but he could affirm that her honour at least was safe. Binding up his self-praise with the praise of Athens, he could point out that she had maintained the policy which was hers by tradition, and had acted up to her noblest past. This was the strength of his position. He could recall with confidence all the heroism which his city had displayed in bygone times in hurling back the invader, and all the generosity she had evinced in pro- tecting the weak. Little, indeed, now remained to Athens but memories ; and Demosthenes in this, his masterpiece, pronounced ' the funeral oration of extinct Athenian and Grecian freedom.* But in doing so, he touched, and, for the hour, awoke, the highest sentiments of his countrymen ; and they felt that he was the one m best able to say what might ' quiet' them * in a death so noble. ΤΠΕΡ ΚΤΗ2ΙΦί1ΝΤ02 ΠΕΡΙ TOT 2ΤΕΦΑΝΟΤ. ΤΠΕΡ ΚΤΗ5ΙΦί1ΝΤ02 ΠΕΡΙ TOT ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΤ. Πρώτον μβν ώ avSpes 'Αθηναίοι τοΐ? θβοΐ? βνχομαι πάσι καΐ πάσαι?, οσην evvoiav βχ^ων ίγω διατβλώ rfj re πόλζί και πασιν νμΐν, τοσαντην υπάρξαι μοι παρ* υμών €19 τοντονί τον αγώνα, €π€ίθ' δ πύρ ίστι μάλισθ' vnep υμών καΐ τη9 νμ€Τ€ρα9 €νσ€β€ία9 re καΐ 86ξη9, τοντο 5 παραστησαί τον? θεού? νμΐν, μη τον άντίδικον σνμ- βονλον ποίήσασθαί nepl τον πώ? άκούξΐν νμά? €μον δβΐ 2 (σχετλίΟϊ/ γαρ αν ζϊη τοντο ye) άλλα τον? νομον? καΐ τον ορκον, kv ω προ? άπασι τοΐ? άλλοι? δίκαιοι? και τοντο γίγραττται, το όμοίω? άμψοΐν άκροάσασθαι. τοντο ίο δ' ίστιν ον μόνον το μη προκατβγνωκίναι μηδίν, ονδβ το την evvoiav ϊσην άποδοΰναι, άλλα καΐ το τη τάζει και τη απολογία, ώ? βββονληται και προηρηται τών αγω- νιζομένων έκαστο?, οντω? εάσαι \ρήσασθαι. 3 Πολλ^ μεν ονν εγωγ ελαττονμαι κατά τοντονι τον ι ζ 1. 4- «'π•€ΐθ', unaccompanied by δ^, the repeated prayer, § 8, the construe- regularly answers ιτρώτον μίν in tion is not parallel ; for there on Demosthenes, §§8, i8, 248 ; so eJra, relates directly to τοντο, which is §§ 105, no, 176, 177, 235, 238-9. object not of παραστήσαι but of Compare μάλιστα μ(ν . . . kireiTa § 267. yvS/vai. ο ΐΓ€ρ does not relate to the sub- 2. 10. τ6 is used to introduce a quo- sequent demonstrative τοντο — in that tation, whether it be given literally, case we should have had δ as in §§60, as § 88 το δ' ' νμίΐί' όταν λί'γα;, § 290 •2θ8, 252, or ΟΤΙ as in §§ 8, 198, 264 τό ' μηδίν άμαρτ€ΐν κ.τ.λ.', or in sub- (δτΓβρ &ν § 197 is different) — but to stance, as here and in § 59, where the the second direct object of εύχομαι, quoted words are made to fall in with that is, to the whole phrase τοντο the construction. ■ηαραστησαι tovs ββούί νμΐν. The If we can trust the copy of the oath TovTo, as in § 293, anticipates the fol- found c. Tim. § 151. p. 747, the actual lowing infinitival clause, which would -woTdsweTe άκροάσομαιτοντ€ κατη-γόρον otherwise hang very loosely on the Hal τον άπολο-γονμίνον όμοίω! άμφοΐν. construction ; and thus the balance of άκροάσασθαι. Wherever no spe- the sentence is preserved. Hence, in cial stress need be laid on the dura- ilktJ/y THE SPEECH OF DEMOSTHENES ON BEHALF OF CTESIPHON ; OR, CONCERNING THE CROWN. Men of Athens, I first pray to all the gods and goddesses that just as much kind ly feeling as I constantly rhprish both / ,/ -^ for the state and ihr yoiLall may await me^iJO m you in view ^^^ΣΙιφΙμ of this pr esent tri al. I next pray for what, indeed, is particu- larly for your good and the good of your conscience and character, that the gods may commend to you this course, not to consult the adversary as to how you must listen to me — for it would be heartless to do that — but to consult the laws 2 and your oath, in which, in addition to all the other just re- quirements, this also has been written, that you hear both sides impartially. And an impartial hearing means not only that you have passed no pre-condemnation on any point, nor only that you render your goodwill in equal measure to both sides, but also that you suffer each of the contending parties to deal with the arrangement of his subject and the mode of his defence exactly as he has wished and deliberately chosen. I, the n, in many res pects stand at a disadvanta ge compared 3 tion, completeness, or date of an Demosthenes see Introduction II. action, the aorist form of the infinitive 13. άιτολογία in strictness could is preferred. Hence the superiority apply only to one of the contending of this reading (2) over the vulgate parties, the defendant ; but (§ 266) άκροάσθαι, or the conjecture άκροά- Aeschines was practically as much on σ^σθαι. See § 57 kiTaiveiv. his trial as Demosthenes. II, ούδ€ = 'nor only' in the col- ώβ . . . οΰτωβ always emphatic location ού μόνον . . . ουδέ , . . αλλά (cf. § 277) in this order: so οσην ... καί, as §§ 93, 107, and, even without τοσαύτην above, and many following μόνον, § 300. instances. 12. After ίσην Dind. has άμψοτί- In Aristotle βούλησι^ is the act of pois. proposing an end to oneself; vpoaiptais τάξ€ΐ κ.τ.λ. Cf. § 56, Aeschines chooses one means to that end in pre- (§§ 203-5) bade the dicasts force De- ference to others. mosthenes to answer the charges in 3. 15. The skeleton of this sentence the order in which he had presented is: πολλά μβν Ιλαττουμαι . . . δυο hi ... , them. For comparative analyses of %v μίν ... (ου γαρ . . . αλλ' ίμοϊ μίν the speech of Aeschines and this of [ου βούλομαι . . .] ουτοί δέ . . .) 'ίτίρον ^^~~^ Β 2 4 AHtA ΟΙΘΕΝΟ Υ Σ §§ 3-5• άγωνα ΑΙσγίνον^ Svo S* ω άνδρ€9 ^Αθηναίοι και /ζβγάλα, €v μ\ν ΟΤΙ ου nepl των ίσων αγωνίζομαι' ου yap k