| Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
| <<Demad. 1.1 | Demad. 1.11 (Greek) | >>Demad. 1.28 |
1.7As they attempted to question the rest of my administration, I wish to make a few points in connexion with it and then to pass on to the remainder of my defence in order to prove their dishonesty to you. I am the son of Demeas, Athenians, as the elder ones among you know, and the early part of my life I lived as best I could, neither doing harm to the community nor troubling any individual in the city. I merely persisted in trying, by my own efforts, to better my humble position.
1.8Penury may involve inconvenience and hardship but it carries with it no discredit, since poverty is frequently, I imagine, a mark not of weakness of character but of sheer misfortune. When I entered public life I did not concentrate on lawsuits or the perquisites to be derived from writing speeches but on speaking freely from the platform, a practice which makes the lives of orators dangerous but holds out the clearest opportunities of success, if men are careful note; for, though they succumb to the speaker, their country's safety must not also fall a victim.
1.9I have, to bear me out, the burial of a thousand Athenians note performed by the hands of our adversaries, hands which I won over from enmity to friendship towards the dead. Then, on coming to the fore in public life, I proposed the peace. I admit it. I proposed honors to Philip. I do not deny it. By making these proposals I gained for you two thousand captives free of ransom, a thousand Athenian dead, for whom no herald had to ask, and Oropus without an embassy.
1.10The hand that wrote them was constrained, not by Macedonian gifts, as my accusers falsely allege, but by the need of the moment, the interest of my country, and the generosity of the king. For he entered the war as our foe but emerged from the struggle as a friend, awarding to the vanquished the prize of the victors.
1.11Again, there came a second crisis for the city; for I deliberately ignore the intervening dangers. All other inhabitants of Greece were promoting Alexander to the rank of leader, and by remoulding him in their decrees they raised the aspirations of a young and ambitious man to an excessive pitch. We and the Spartans remained, with neither revenues nor armaments nor regiments of infantry to be the bulwark of our safety, yet fortified by a great desire, though our power was small and humble.
1.12The Spartans had been deprived of their strength by the battle of Leuctra note, and the Eurotas, which had never yet heard an enemy trumpet, saw Boeotians camping in Laconia . For the Theban had cut off the bloom of Sparta , enveloping in ashes the flower of her young men, the established boundaries of Laconia . Our own resources were spent with war and the hopes of the survivors were oppressed by the fate of the dead.
1.13The Thebans were suffering the closest restriction in the Macedonian garrison note which bound their hands together and had even deprived them of their freedom of speech. Time buried the power of Thebes with the body of Epaminonidas. The Macedonians had reached their full strength, and in their aspirations Fortune was already leading them across the sea against the throne and treasuries of Persia .
1.14Then too Demosthenes decided upon war, offering to his compatriots counsel which, though seemingly prudent, was in reality fraught with danger. note When the enemy was encamped near Attica and the country was being confined in the town, when the city, worthy to be striven for and marvelled at by all, was being filled like a stable with oxen, sheep and flocks and there was no hope of help from any quarter, I proposed the peace.
1.15I admit it and I maintain that it is an honorable and expedient course to have taken. For it is better to shun the cloud as it approaches than to be swept away in the rush of the flood. I ask, Athenians, that the grief occasioned by events shall not engender in you any bitterness against me. For I have no mastery over Fortune; it is Fortune which controls life and gives it its danger. The counsellor, like the doctor, must not take blame for the disease; he must be thanked for the cure.
1.16Discount, therefore, what happened from extraneous causes and simply examine my policy naked in the light of facts. To resume then: after this the city was exposed to a third and paramount danger, not this time sent by Fortune but brought on us by the politicians of the day. note
1.17I would ask you to recall their conduct when Demosthenes and Lycurgus, side by side in their speeches, were defeating the Macedonians among the Triballi and almost exhibited the body of Alexander on the platform for us to see; when, in the Assembly, they calmed the Theban exiles, who were present, with specious words and spurred on their minds to conceive a hope of freedom, protesting that I was gloomy and over pessimistic since I did not approve . . .
| Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
| <<Demad. 1.1 | Demad. 1.11 (Greek) | >>Demad. 1.28 |
