Greek Texts & Translations

When you had been deluded by Philip through the agency of the men who took his pay when on embassy and brought back fictitious reports, and when the unhappy Phocians were likewise deluded, and all their cities destroyed, what happened? 18.43Those vile Thessalians and those ill-conditioned Thebans regarded Philip as their friend, their benefactor, and their deliverer. He was all in all to them; they would not listen to the voice of any one who spoke ill of him. You Athenians, though suspicious and dissatisfied, observed the terms of peace, for you could do nothing. The rest of the Greeks, though similarly overreached and disappointed, observed the peace; and yet in a sense the war against them had already begun; 18.44for when Philip was moving hither and thither, subduing Illyrians and Triballians, and some Greeks as well, when he was gradually getting control of large military resources, and when certain Greek citizens, including Aeschines, were availing themselves of the liberty of the peace to visit Macedonia and take bribes, all these movements were really acts of war upon the states against which Philip was making his preparations. That they failed to perceive it is another story, and does not concern me. 18.45My forebodings and expostulations were unceasing; I uttered them in the Assembly and in every city to which I was sent. But all the cities were demoralized. The active politicians were venal and corrupted by the hope of money: the unofficial classes and the people in general were either blind to the future or ensnared by the listlessness and indolence of their daily life; in all the malady had gone so far that they expected the danger to descend anywhere but upon themselves, and even hoped to derive their security at will from the perils of others. 18.46In the result, of course, the excessive and inopportune apathy of the common people has been punished by the loss of their independence, while their leaders, who fancied they were selling everything except themselves, discover too late that their own liberty was the first thing they sold. Instead of the name of trusty friend, in which they rejoiced when they were taking their bribes, they are dubbed toad-eaters and scoundrels, and other suitable epithets. What did they expect? 18.47Men of Athens, it is not because he wants to do a traitor a good turn that a man spends his money; nor, when he has once got what he paid for, has he any further use for the traitor's counsels. Otherwise treason would be the most profitable of all trades. But it is not so. How could it be? Far from it! As soon as the man who grasps at power has achieved his purpose, he is the master of those who sold him his mastery; and then—yes, then!—knowing their baseness, he loathes them, mistrusts them, and reviles them. 18.48Look at these instances, because, though the right time for action is past, for wise men it is always the right time to understand history. Lasthenes was hailed as friend—until he betrayed Olynthus; Timolaus, until he brought Thebes to ruin; Eudicus and Simus of Larissa, until they put Thessaly under Philip's heel. Since then the whole world has become crowded with men exiled, insulted, punished in every conceivable way. What of Aristratus at Sicyon? or Perilaus ^note at Megara? Are they not outcasts? 18.49From these examples it may be clearly discerned that the man who is most vigilant in defence of his country and most vigorous in his opposition to treason—he is the man, Aeschines, who provides you traitors and mercenaries with something that you can betray for a bribe; and, if you are still secure and still drawing your pay, you owe this to the great majority of these citizens, and to those who thwarted your purposes—for your own efforts would long ago have brought you to destruction.

18.50I could say much more about the history of that time, but I suppose that what has been said is more than enough. My antagonist is to blame, for he has so bespattered me with the sour dregs of his own knavery and his own crimes, that I was obliged to clear myself in the eyes of men too young to remember those transactions. But it has perhaps been wearisome to you, who, before I said a word, knew all about his venality. 18.51However, he calls it friendship and amity; and only just now he spoke of “the man who taunts me with the friendship of Alexander.” I taunt you with the friendship of Alexander! Where did you get it? How did you earn it? I am not out of my mind, and I would never call you the friend either of Philip or Alexander, unless we are to call a harvester or other hired laborer the friend of the man who pays him for his job. 18.52But it is not so. How could it be? Far from it! I call you Philip's hireling of yesterday, and Alexander's hireling of today, and so does every man in this Assembly. If you doubt my word, ask them; or rather I will ask them myself. Come, men of Athens, what do you think? Is Aeschines Alexander's hireling, or Alexander's friend? You hear what they say.