Greek Texts & Translations

18.60Well, I pass by those successes which Philip achieved and maintained before I became a politician and a public speaker, as I do not think that they concern me. I will, however, remind you of enterprises of his which were thwarted after the day on which I entered public life. Of these I will render an account, premising only that Philip started with this enormous advantage. 18.61In all the Greek states—not in some but in every one of them—it chanced that there had sprung up the most abundant crop of traitorous, venal, and profligate politicians ever known within the memory of mankind. These persons Philip adopted as his satellites and accomplices. The disposition of Greeks towards one another was already vicious and quarrelsome and he made it worse. Some he cajoled; some he bribed; some he corrupted in every possible way. He split them into many factions, although all had one common interest—to thwart his aggrandizement. 18.62Now seeing that all Greece was in such a plight, and still unconscious of a gathering and ever-growing evil, what was the right policy for Athens to adopt, and the right action for her to take? That is the question, men of Athens, which you ought to consider, and that is the issue on which I ought to be called to account; for I was the man who took up a firm position in that department of your public affairs. 18.63Was it the duty of our city, Aeschines, to abase her pride, to lower her dignity, to rank herself with Thessalians and Dolopians, to help Philip to establish his supremacy over Greece, to annihilate the glories and the prerogatives of our forefathers? Or, if she rejected that truly shameful policy, was she to stand by and permit aggressions which she must have long foreseen, and knew would succeed if none should intervene? 18.64I would now like to ask the man who censures our past conduct most severely, what party he would have wished our city to join. The party that shares the guilt of all the disasters and dishonors that have befallen Greece,—the party, as one may say, of the Thessalians and their associates? Or that which permitted those disasters in the hope of selfish gain, the party in which we may include the Arcadians, the Messenians, and the Argives? 18.65Why, the fate of many, indeed of all, of those nations is worse than ours. For if, after his victory, Philip had at once taken himself off, and relapsed into inactivity, harassing neither his own allies nor any other Greeks, there might have been some reason for finding fault with the opponents of his enterprises; but seeing that, wherever he could, he destroyed the prestige, the authority, the independence, and even the constitution of every city alike, who can deny that you chose the most honor able of all policies when you followed my advice?

18.66To resume my argument: I ask you, Aeschines, what was the duty of Athens when she perceived that Philip's purpose was to establish a despotic empire over all Greece? What language, what counsels, were incumbent upon an adviser of the people at Athens, of all places in the world, when I was conscious that, from the dawn of her history to the day when I first ascended the tribune, our country had ever striven for primacy, and honor, and renown, and that to serve an honor able ambition and the common welfare of Greece she had expended her treasure and the lives of her sons far more generously than any other Hellenic state fighting only for itself;