Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
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1.1The laws have given you the right, Athenians, to acquit or punish men on trial. A doctor cannot treat his patients skilfully if he has not discerned the cause of the disease, nor can a member of a jury give a fair vote unless he has followed intelligently the rights and wrongs of the case. 1.2Since I have myself become exposed to the full hatred of the orators, I am asking not only for divine assistance but for your help also. For they are casting aspersions on my personal history, thinking to undermine your confidence in my speech. I am of no consequence whether alive or dead; for what do the Athenians care if Demades is lost to them, too? No soldier will shed tears over my death—(How could he, when war brings him advancement and peace destroys his livelihood?); but it will be lamented by the farmer, the sailor, and everyone who has enjoyed the peaceful life with which I fortified
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
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
1.35It was not I that advised this course: my country, the occasion, the circumstances themselves, thought fit to use my voice to put the measures into effect. It Is unjust therefore that an adviser should be held accountable for circumstances and for events whose outcome rested with fortune.
1.36Killed by his own hand he departed this life.
1.37The daughters of Erechtheus, note by nobility of virtue, triumphed over the woman's weakness in their hearts the frailty of their nature was made virile by devotion to the soil that reared them.
1.38Old men shrink from death in the sunset of life.
1.39. . . lit up
1.40A word, if rashly uttered, will sharpen the sword of war, and yet, if skilfully chosen, it will blunt the spear even though it is already whetted. There is more speed in management than in force.
1.41The barbarian accepted the statement but did not probe its meaning. For his ears interpreted the message to conform with his own pleasure rather than with the truth. But this was no idle speech, for deeds followed hard upon it.
1.42Force does not enable a man to master even the smallest things. It was inventiveness and system that made him yoke the ox to the plough for the tilling of the land, bridle the horse, set a rider on the elephant, and cross the boundless sea in boats of wood. The engineer and craftsman of all these things is mind, and we must use it as our guide, not always seeking to follow the subtleties of our own plans but rather the natural changes of events. This was the method by which I tamed Alexander, like some fearful beast, with flattering words and made him tractable for the future.
1.43A manly utterance and a frankness worthy of the name Athenian.
1.44I hate the popular leaders because they disturb the people and shatter the peace, the fruit of my administration, with a decree in favour of war.
1.45Our ancestors left
1.46Freedom is not on guard against a spy.
1.47The changes to which events are subject are treacherous and unceasing.
1.48For it is by a resolution of goodwill that the altar of immortality has been erected. note
1.49You will set over them time speaking as a herald.
1.50Alexander who framed his hopes to gain world dominion.
1.51Demosthenes, a little man made up of syllables and a tongue.
1.52For those words as it were lulled to sleep the king's anger.
1.53For the powers of the city and the pride of
1.54War, like a cloud, was threatening
1.55Examine the truth in the light of events and do not give more weight to false charges than to accepted facts.
1.56. . . by the course of events proclaims the fire of war. This letter of Alexander's broke my purpose. note This letter, embracing war in characters of ink, almost seized me by the hand and roused me. It travelled through my thoughts and did not let me rest in peace; for the danger was at our gates.
1.57My diplomacy and the clamor that greeted it combined to set the city on the watch, saved
1.58Fear of war, like darkness, does not present the same aspect when it confronts us as when it has been averted.
1.59It seems, therefore, the harshest imaginable rule that a man should be held accountable in time of peace for his administration during war. For every critic judges it with reference to the present calm, not to the danger that is over. And yet, if we make no allowance for the crisis, we are removing too the justification for the action.
1.60Each offence is dealt with in its own particular way some call for the council of the Areopagus, some for lesser courts, others for the Heliaea. All these are distinguished in name, circumstance, time, penalty, procedure, and in the number of the jury.
1.61Those who malign me are making unwarranted accusations. They do not charge me with plotting, for their villainy is bound by no oath. But the jury's judgement is governed by an oath.
1.62An unjust trial differs from an unjust punishment only in name.
1.63They think that they will plunge me below the surface.
1.64It is not right that the saving of a man in danger should provide fuel for the malicious charges of those who have abandoned all principle, nor that an accusation based on stories should be held stronger than a defence grounded on facts.
1.65
Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
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