| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 16.11 | Dem. 16.23 (Greek) | >>Dem. 16.32 |
16.19But further, with regard to any acts which they say the Megalopolitans have committed for the sake of the Thebans somewhat against your interests, it is ridiculous to make these now the count of an indictment, but when they want to become friends and make you some reparation, to look askance at them and devise means of preventing this, and not to realize that the more zealous they show themselves to have been in the cause of the Thebans, the more justly would these very speakers incur your anger, if they deprived the city of such useful allies, when they came to you before applying to Thebes .
16.20But these, I take it, are the allegations of men who want once again to drive the Megalopolitans elsewhere for an alliance. Now I know, as far as reasoning and conjecture can teach me, and I think that most of you will agree with me, that if the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis , Messene will be in danger; and if they take Messene also, I say that we shall find ourselves in alliance with Thebes .
16.21Surely it is more honorable and satisfactory that we should win the alliance of the Thebans on our own account and resist Spartan ambition, than that we should shrink from rescuing the allies of Thebes and abandon them now, only to rescue the Thebans in the end, and to be kept moreover in perpetual alarm for ourselves.
16.22For I cannot regard it as a pledge of our security, that the Lacedaemonians should seize Megalopolis and grow great once more, seeing as I do that even now they have not taken up arms to avenge an injury, but to recover the power that once was theirs; and what their ambition was in the day of their power, you know perhaps better than I, and will distrust them accordingly.
Thebes , let us admit that Thespiae , Orchomenus and Plataea ought to be restored, and let us co-operate with their inhabitants and appeal to the other states, for it is a just and honorable policy not to allow ancient cities to be uprooted; but at the same time let us not abandon Megalopolis and Messene to their oppressors, nor allow the restoration of Plataea and Thespiae to blind us to the destruction of existing and established states.
16.26Moreover, if we proclaim this policy, there is none but will be glad that the Thebans should cease to hold other people's territory; if we do not, we shall not only find the Thebans, naturally enough, hostile to the other proposal, as soon as they reflect that the restoration of those cities means ruin to themselves, but we shall also involve ourselves in endless trouble; for what limit indeed can there be, if we are always sanctioning the destruction of existing cities, and demanding the restoration of those that are destroyed?
Thebes to the claims of justice; or if, while the Megalopolitans join our alliance in all sincerity, the Lacedaemonians refuse to keep the peace, then it will be equally obvious that the object of their activities is not merely to restore Thespiae , but to subjugate the Peloponnese while the Thebans are engrossed in the war.
16.23I should like to ask those speakers who profess hatred of the Thebans and of the Lacedaemonians, whether they hate them in either case for your sake and in your interests, or whether they hate the Thebans for the sake of the Lacedaemonians and the Lacedaemonians for the sake of the Thebans respectively. If the latter, you must not take the advice of either party, because they are both mad; but if they allege your interests, why do they unduly forward the interests of those other states? 16.24For it is surely possible to humble the Thebans without strengthening the Lacedaemonians; nay, it is much easier. How it can be done, I will try to explain.
Everyone knows this much, that all men, even against their wishes, are, up to a certain point, ashamed not to do what is just, but make a display of opposition to injustice, especially in cases where there are definite victims; and we shall find that what ruins everything—the root in fact of all evil—is unwillingness to act justly under all circumstances.
16.25In order, then, that this unwillingness may not stand in the way of the weakening of16.27Now those who seem to argue most fairly demand of the Megalopolitans that they shall destroy the pillars note that record their treaty with the Thebans, if they are to be our trusted allies. But they reply that with them friendship is based, not on inscribed pillars, but on mutual advantage, and they count as their allies those who are their helpers. But, granting the fairness of these speakers, my own view is this. I say that we must at the same time call upon them to destroy the pillars and upon the Lacedaemonians to keep the peace. If they refuse—whichever of the two it may be—then at once we side with those who consent. 16.28If the Megalopolitans, though peace is secured for them, still cling to the Theban alliance, it will of course be obvious to all that they prefer the ambition of
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 16.11 | Dem. 16.23 (Greek) | >>Dem. 16.32 |
