Greek Texts & Translations

18.195Here is another point for your consideration. If we were destined to disaster when we fought with the Thebans at our side, what were we to expect if we had lacked even that alliance, and if they had joined Philip, a union for which he exerted all his powers of appeal? And if, after a battle fought three days' march from the frontier, such danger and such alarm beset the city, what must we have expected after suffering the same defeat within our own borders? Do you not see that, as it was, one, or two, or three days gave the city time for resistance, concentration, recovery, for much that made for deliverance; as it might have been—but I will not mention an experience that we were spared by divine favor, and by the protection of that very alliance which you denounce.

18.196Gentlemen of the jury, all this long story is intended for you, and for that circle of hearers outside the barrier. For this contemptible fellow, I have a short, plain, and sufficient answer. Aeschines, if the future was revealed to you and to nobody else, you should have given us the benefit of your predictions when we were deliberating; if you had no foreknowledge, you are open to the charge of ignorance just like the rest of us. Then what better right have you to denounce me than I to denounce you? 18.197In respect of the business of which I am speaking— and at present I discuss nothing else—I am a better citizen than you, in so far as I devoted myself to a course of action that was unanimously approved, neither shirking nor even counting any personal danger. You made no more acceptable suggestion, otherwise mine would not have been adopted; and in carrying out mine you were not of the slightest use. You are proved after the event to have behaved throughout like a worthless and most unpatriotic citizen; and now, by a strange coincidence, those thorough-going enemies of Athens, Aristratus at Naxos and Aristolaus at Thasos, are bringing the friends of Athens to trial, while at Athens itself Aeschines is accusing Demosthenes. 18.198And yet he who built his reputation on the accumulated misfortunes of Greece deserves rather to perish himself than to prosecute his neighbor; and the man who has found his profit in the same emergencies as his country's foes can make no claim to patriotism. You stand revealed in your life and conduct, in your public performances and also in your public abstinences. A project approved by the people is going forward. Aeschines is speechless. A regrettable incident is reported. Aeschines is in evidence. He reminds one of an old sprain or fracture: the moment you are out of health it begins to be active.

18.199As he lays so much stress on results, let me venture on a paradox. If it seems extravagant, I beg that you will not be surprised, but that you will still give friendly consideration to what I am saying. Suppose that the future had been revealed to all of us, that every one had known what would happen, and that you, Aeschines, had predicted and protested, and shouted and stormed—though in fact you never opened your mouth—even then the city could not have departed from that policy, if she had any regard for honor, or for our ancestors, or for the days that are to come. 18.200All that can be said now is, that we have failed and that is the common lot of humanity, if God so wills. But then, if Athens, after claiming the primacy of the nations, had run away from her claims, she would have been held guilty of betraying Greece to Philip. If, without striking a blow, she had abandoned the cause for which our forefathers flinched from no peril, is there a man who would not have spat in your face? In your face, Aeschines: not at Athens, not at me! 18.201How could we have returned the gaze of visitors to our city, if the result had been what it is—Philip the chosen lord paramount of all Greece—and if other nations had fought gallantly to avert that calamity without our aid, although never before in the whole course of history had our city preferred inglorious security to the perils of a noble cause? 18.202There is no man living, whether Greek or barbarian, who does not know that the Thebans, or the Lacedaemonians, who held supremacy before them, ^note or the king of Persia himself, would cheerfully and gratefully have given Athens liberty to keep what she had and to take what she chose, if only she would do their behest and surrender the primacy of Greece.