Greek Texts & Translations

18.274Among other people I find this sort of distinction universally observed.—A man has sinned willfully: he is visited with resentment and punishment. He has erred unintentionally: pardon takes the place of punishment. Suppose that he has committed no sin or error at all, but, having devoted himself to a project approved by all, has, in common with all, failed of success. In that case he does not deserve reproach or obloquy, but condolence. 18.275This distinction will be found not only embodied in our statutes, but laid down by nature herself in her unwritten laws and in the moral sense of the human race. Now Aeschines so far surpasses all mankind in savagery and malignity that he turns even misadventures, which he has himself cited as such, into crimes for which I am to be denounced.

18.276To crown all—as though all his own speeches had been made in a disinterested and patriotic spirit—he bids you be on your guard against me, for fear I should mislead and deceive you, calling me an artful speaker, a mountebank, an impostor, and so forth. He seems to think that if a man can only get in the first blow with epithets that are really applicable to himself, they must be true, and the audience will make no reflections on the character of the speaker. 18.277But I am sure you all know him well, and will regard those epithets as more appropriate to him than to me. I am also sure that my artfulness—well, be it so; although I notice that in general an audience controls the ability of a speaker, and that his reputation for wisdom depends upon your acceptance and your discriminating favor. Be that as it may, if I do possess any skill in speaking, you will all find that that skill has always been exercised on public concerns and for your advantage, never on private occasions and to your detriment. On the other hand the ability of Aeschines is applied not only to speaking on behalf of your enemies, but to the detriment of anyone who has annoyed or quarrelled with him. He never uses it honestly or in the interests of the commonweal. 18.278No upright and honor able citizen must ever expect a jury impanelled in the public service to bolster up his own resentment or enmity or other passions, nor will he go to law to gratify them. If possible he will exclude them from his heart: if he cannot escape them, he will at least cherish them calmly and soberly. In what circumstances, then, ought a politician or an orator to be vehement? When all our national interests are imperilled; when the issue lies between the people and their adversaries. Then such is the part of a chivalrous and patriotic citizen. 18.279But for a man who never once sought to bring me to justice for any public, nor, I will add, for any private offence, whether for the city's sake or for his own, to come into court armed with a denunciation of a crown and of a vote of thanks, and to lavish such a wealth of eloquence on that plea, is a symptom of a peevish, jealous, small-minded, good-for-nothing disposition. And the exhibition of his turpitude is complete when he relinquishes his controversy with me, and directs the whole of his attack upon the defendant. 18.280It really makes me think, Aeschines, that you deliberately went to law, not to get satisfaction for any transgression, but to make a display of your oratory and your vocal powers. But it is not the diction of an orator, Aeschines, or the vigor of his voice that has any value: it is supporting the policy of the people, and having the same friends and the same enemies as your country. 18.281With such a disposition, a man's speeches will always be patriotic: but the man who pays court to those from whom the state apprehends danger to herself, is not riding at the same anchor as the people, and therefore does not look to the same quarter for his security. I do; mark that! My purposes are my countrymen's purposes; I have no peculiar or personal end to serve. 18.282Can you say the same? No, indeed! Why, immediately after the battle you went on embassy to visit Philip, the author of all the recent calamities of your country, although hitherto you had notoriously declined that employment. And who is the deceiver of his country? Surely the man who does not say what he thinks. For whom does the marshal read the commination? For him. What graver crime can be charged to an orator than that his thoughts and his words do not tally? In that crime you were detected; 18.283and yet you still raise your voice, and dare to look your fellow citizens in the face! Do you imagine that they do not know who you are? that they are sunk in such slumber and oblivion that they do not remember the harangues you made while the war was still going on, when you protested with oaths and curses that you had no dealings with Philip— that I had laid that charge against you out of private malice, and that it was not true? 18.284But no sooner had the news of the battle reached us than you ignored all your protests, and confessed, or rather claimed, that you were Philip's friend and Philip's guest—a euphemism for Philip's hired servant; for with what show of equality or honesty could Philip possibly be the host or the friend or even the acquaintance of Aeschines, son of Glaucothea the tambourinist ? I cannot see: but the truth is, you took his pay to injure the interests of your countrymen. And yet you, a traitor publicly convicted on information laid by yourself after the fact, vilify and reproach me for misfortunes for which you will find I am less responsible than any other man.