| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 18.296 | Dem. 18.304 (Greek) | >>Dem. 18.315 |
18.301What course of action was proper for a patriotic citizen who was trying to serve his country with all possible prudence and energy and loyalty? Surely it was to protect Attica on the sea-board by Euboea , on the inland frontier by Boeotia , and on the side towards Peloponnesus by our neighbors in that direction; to make provision for the passage of our corn-supply along friendly coasts all the way to Peiraeus;
18.302to preserve places already at our disposal, such as Proconnesus , Chersonesus , Tenedos , by sending succor to them and by suitable speeches and resolutions; to secure the friendship and alliance of such places as Byzantium , Abydos , and Euboea ; to destroy the most important of the existing resources of the enemy, and to make good the deficiencies of our own city. All these purposes were accomplished by my decrees and my administrative acts.
18.303Whoever will study them, men of Athens , without jealousy, will find that they were rightly planned and honestly executed; that the proper opportunity for each several measure was never neglected, or ignored, or thrown away by me: and that nothing within the compass of one man's ability or forethought was left undone. If the superior power of some deity or of fortune, or the incompetence of commanders, or the wickedness of traitors, or all these causes combined, vitiated and at last shattered the whole enterprise,—is Demosthenes guilty?
18.304If in each of the cities of Greece there had been some one man such as I was in my appointed station in your midst, nay, if Thessaly had possessed one man and Arcadia one man holding the same sentiments that I held, no Hellenic people beyond or on this side of Thermopylae would have been exposed to their present distresses:
18.305they would still be dwelling prosperously in their own countries, in freedom and independence, securely and without fear, grateful to you and to all the Athenians for the great and manifold blessings they owed to me. To prove that, as a precaution against envy, I am using words that do less than justice to my deeds, please take these papers, and read the list of expeditions sent in pursuance of my decrees.Athens or her policy, but lays the blame on the fortune that so ordered the issue.
18.307Assuredly it was not the duty of such a citizen to abandon the cause of his country, to take the hire of her adversaries, to wait on the occasions, not of Athens , but of her enemies. It was not his duty to look with an evil eye upon a man who had made it his business to support or propose measures worthy of our traditions, and was resolved to stand by such measures; nor to treasure vindictively the memory of private annoyances. Nor was it his duty to hold his peace dishonestly and deceptively, as you so often do.
18.308There is, indeed, a silence that is honest and beneficial to the city, such as is observed in all simplicity by the majority of you citizens. Not such, but far, far different, is the silence of Aeschines. Withdrawing himself from public life whenever he thinks fit—and that is very frequently—he lies in wait for the time when you will be weary of the incessant speaker, or when some unlucky reverse has befallen you, or any of those vexations that are so frequent in the life of mortal men; and then, seizing the occasion, he breaks silence and the orator reappears like a sudden squall, with his voice in fine training; he strings together the words and the phrases that he has accumulated, emphatically and without a pause; but, alas, they are all useless, they serve no good purpose, they are directed to the injury of this or that citizen, and to the discredit of the whole community.
18.309Yet if all that assiduous practice, Aeschines, had been conducted in a spirit of honesty and of solicitude for your country's well-being, it should have yielded a rich and noble harvest for the benefit of us all—alliances of states, new revenues, development of commerce, useful legislation, measures of opposition to our avowed enemies.
18.310In days of old all those services afforded the recognized test of statesmanship: and the time through which you have passed supplied to an upright politician many opportunities of showing his worth; but among such men you won no position—you were neither first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, nor anywhere in the race—at least when the power of your country was to be enlarged.
Number of Expeditions in Aid
18.306It was the duty, Aeschines, of an upright and honor able citizen to take these or similar measures. If they had been successful, we should have been, beyond controversy, the greatest of nations and a nation that deserved its greatness: and, though they have failed, there remains the result that our reputation stands high, and that no man can find fault with
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 18.296 | Dem. 18.304 (Greek) | >>Dem. 18.315 |
