| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 19.247 | Dem. 19.255 (Greek) | >>Dem. 19.261 |
19.252He illustrated his remarks by representing to the jury the attitude of the statue; but his mimicry did not include what, politically, would have been much more profitable than an attitude,—a view of Solon's spirit and purpose, so widely different from his own. When Salamis had revolted, and the Athenian people had forbidden under penalty of death any proposal for its recovery, Solon, accepting the risk of death, composed and recited an elegiac poem, and so retrieved that country for Athens and removed a standing dishonor.
19.253Aeschines, on the other hand, gave away and sold Amphipolis , a city which the King of Persia and all Greece recognized as yours, speaking in support of the resolution moved by Philocrates. It was highly becoming in him, was it not to remind us of Solon? Not content with this performance at home, he went to Macedonia , and never mentioned the place with which his mission was concerned. So he stated in his own report, for no doubt you remember how he said “I, too, had something to say about Amphipolis , but I left it out to give Demosthenes a chance of dealing with that subject.”
19.254I rose and told you that he had never once left to me anything that he wanted to say to Philip: he would sooner give a man a share of his life-blood than a share of his speech. The truth is that, having accepted money, he could hardly confront Philip, who gave him the money on purpose that he might not restore Amphipolis . Now, please, take and read these elegiac verses of Solon, to show the jury how Solon detested people like the defendant.
Macedonia you held out your hands, turned them palm upwards, and brought shame upon your countrymen, and then here at home you talk magniloquently; you practise and declaim some miserable fustian, and think to escape the due penalty of your heinous crimes, if you only don your little skull-cap, note take your constitutional, and abuse me. Now read.Athens , what Solon says of men of such character, and of the gods who protect our city. That saying about the protection of our city by the gods is, as I hope and firmly believe, eternally true; and in a manner I think that even the events of this scrutiny furnish the commonwealth with a new example of the divine favor.
19.257For consider this: a man who had scandalously misconducted his embassy, and who had given away whole provinces in which the gods should have been worshipped by you and your allies, disfranchised one who had prosecuted him at duty's call. note And all for what? That he himself may win neither compassion nor indulgence for his own transgressions. Moreover, in accusing him, he went out of his way to speak evil of me, and again at the Assembly he declared he would lay an indictment, with other such threats. And why? In order that you may extend your best indulgence to me when I, who have the most accurate knowledge of his villainies, and have watched him closely throughout, appear as his prosecutor.
19.255What we require, Aeschines, is not oratory with enfolded hands, but diplomacy with enfolded hands. But in
Solon's ElegiacsSolon
Not by the doom of Zeus, who ruleth all,
Not by the curse of Heaven shallAthens fall.
Strong in her Sire, above the favored land
Pallas Athene lifts her guardian hand.
No; her own citizens with counsels vain
Shall work her rain in their quest of gain;
Dishonest demagogues her folk misguide,
Foredoomed to suffer for their guilty pride.
Their reckless greed, insatiate of delight,
Knows not to taste the frugal feast aright;
Th' unbridled lust of gold, their only care,
Nor public wealth nor wealth divine will spare.
Now here, now there, they raven, rob and seize,
Heedless of Justice and her stern decrees,
Who silently the present and the past
Reviews, whose slow revenge o'ertakes at last.
On every home the swift contagion falls,
Till servitude a free-born race enthralls.
Now faction reigns now wakes the sword of strife,
And comely youth shall pay its toll of life;
We waste our strength in conflict with our kin,
And soon our gates shall let the foeman in.
Such woes the factious nation shall endure;
A fate more hard awaits the hapless poor;
For them, enslaved, bound with insulting chains,
Captivity in alien lands remains.
To every hearth the public curse extends;
The courtyard gate no longer safety lends;
Death leaps the wall, nor shall he shun the doom
Who flies for safety to his inmost room.
Ye men of
Athens , listen while I show
How many ills from lawless licence flow.
Respect for Law shall check your rising lust,
Humble the haughty, fetter the unjust,
Make the rough places plain, bid envy cease,
Wither infatuation's fell increase,
Make crooked judgement straight, the works prevent
Of insolence and sullen discontent,
And quench the fires of strife. In Law we find
The wisdom and perfection of Mankind.
19.256You have heard, men of
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 19.247 | Dem. 19.255 (Greek) | >>Dem. 19.261 |
