Greek Texts & Translations

18.215After that, the Thebans invited you to join them. You marched out: you reinforced them. I pass over the incidents of the march: but their reception of you was so friendly that, while their own infantry and cavalry lay outside the walls, they gave you access to their homes, to their citadel, to their wives and children and most precious possessions. On that day the Thebans publicly paid three fine compliments—to your valor, to your righteousness, and to your sobriety. When they decided to fight on your side rather than against you, they adjudged you to be braver men than Philip, and your claim to be more righteous than his; and when they put into your power what they, like all other men, were most anxious to safeguard, namely their wives and their children, they exhibited their confidence in your sobriety. 18.216And thereby, men of Athens, they showed a just appreciation of your character. After the entry of your soldiers no man ever laid even a groundless complaint against them, so soberly did you conduct yourselves. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with them in the two earliest engagements,—the battle by the river, and the winter battle,—you approved yourselves irreproachable fighters, admirable alike in discipline, in equipment, and in determination. Your conduct elicited the praises of other nations, and was acknowledged by yourselves in services of thanksgiving to the gods. 18.217I should like to ask Aeschines a question: when all that was going on, when the whole city was a scene of enthusiasm and rejoicing and thanksgiving, did he take part in the worship and festivity of the populace, or did he sit still at home, grieving and groaning and sulking over public successes? If he was present as one of the throng, surely his behavior is scandalous and even sacrilegious, for after calling the gods to witness that certain measures were very good, he now asks a jury to vote that they were very bad—a jury that has sworn by the gods! If he was not present, he deserves many deaths for shrinking from a sight in which every one else rejoiced. Please read these decrees.Decrees appointing a Public Thanksgiving

18.218So we were engaged in thanksgiving, and the Thebans in the deliverance that they owed to us. The situation was reversed, and a nation that, thanks to the intrigues of Aeschines and his party, seemed on the verge of suing for aid, was now giving aid in pursuance of the advice which you accepted from me. But indeed, what sort of language Philip gave vent to at that time, and how seriously he was discomposed, you shall learn from letters sent by him to Peloponnesus. Please take and read them, that the jury may learn the real effect of my perseverance, of my journeys and hardships, and of that profusion of decrees at which Aeschines was just now scoffing.

18.219Men of Athens, there have been many great and distinguished orators in your city before my time,—the famous Callistratus, Aristophon, Cephalus, Thrasybulus, and thousands more; but no one of them ever devoted himself to any public business without intermission; the man who moved a resolution would not go on embassy, and the man who went on embassy would not move a resolution. Each of them used to leave himself some leisure, and at the same time some loop-hole, in case anything happened. 18.220“What!” some one may say, “were you so much stronger and bolder than others that you could do everything by yourself?” That is not what I mean: but I was so firmly persuaded that the danger which overhung the city was very serious, that it did not seem to me to leave me any room for taking my personal safety into account; but a man, I thought, must be content, without neglecting anything, to do his duty. 18.221As for myself, I was convinced, presumptuously, perhaps, but convinced I was, that there was no one more competent either to make sound proposals, or to carry them into effect, or to conduct an embassy diligently and honestly: and therefore I took my place in every field of action. Read Philip's letters.Letters

18.222To these straits had my policy, Aeschines, reduced Philip: and such was then the language uttered by a man who had hitherto lifted his voice vauntingly against Athens. And for that reason I was deservedly decorated by the citizens. You were present, but said nothing in opposition; and Diondas, who arraigned the grant, did not get the fifth part of the votes. Please read the decrees which were then by that acquittal validated, and which Aeschines never even arraigned.Decrees

18.223These decrees, men of Athens, exhibit the same wording and phrasing as those proposed formerly by Aristonicus, and now by Ctesiphon. Aeschines did not prosecute them himself, nor did he support the accusation of the man who did arraign them. And yet if there is any truth in his present denunciation, he might then have prosecuted Demomeles, the proposer, and Hypereides, with more reason than Ctesiphon,