| Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
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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 . . .
Attica .
Attica , and now that the catastrophe was on our borders and Greece was cowering we had need to soothe and tame the anger of the king, which had been roused against our people.
Thebes would then be still a city. Now it is but the site of a city, a remnant of catastrophe, razed to its foundations by enemy hands.
Attica nor to be silent and endure the sight of the city sinking like a ship.
Boeotia , led them to a graveyard.
Sparta was worn out with difficulties.
Greece in their grip. Therefore the law which they intended to direct against others . . .
1.18There is bitterness in the voice of truth, when the speaker with simple frankness takes away the expectation of great successes: while pleasant words, though they are false, convince those who hear them.
1.19The danger was expected to reach
1.20In a short time the Macedonian spearheads had already closed on
1.21It is not the giving of the bribe that distresses us but the action of the man who takes it, if it is directed against our interests.
1.22With these words he raises the firebrand of war and the enemy encamps at the gates.
1.23He decided the war with bloodshed.
1.24My purpose is not to get gold, as these men falsely allege; it is this.
1.25. . . had suspicion as an ally.
1.26If only the Thebans had possessed a Demades; for
1.27It was not honorable to admit enemy blood and Macedonian fire into
1.28But the cowardly politicians, leading out the flower of the city to
1.29It is with peace, not argument, that we must counter the Macedonian phalanx; for argument lacks power to take effect when urged by men whose strength is less than their desire.
1.30The anger of those who have been wronged is appeased whenever he who is to blame refrains from contentiousness and lets the party wronged judge for himself the kindness he will show.
1.31They entombed the envoys in a well, note noble in so far as they stood by their resolution, but impious in the execution of the punishment.
1.32
1.33Demosthenes, bitter sycophant that he is, by the cleverness of his words distorted the fact and showed it in a bad light.
1.34They came to realize clearly the changeability of the politician's life, the uncertainty of the future, the variety of fortune's changes, and the difficulty of gauging the crises that hold
| Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
| <<Demad. 1.7 | Demad. 1.20 (Greek) | >>Demad. 1.43 |
