Greek Texts & Translations

19.57To give you the clearest proof that that destruction was effected in this way by the contrivance of these men, I will submit a reckoning of the dates of the several transactions. If any of the defendants challenges my calculation, let him stand up and speak in the time ^note allotted to me. Now the treaty was made on the nineteenth of Elaphebolion, and we were abroad receiving the oaths for three entire months. During the whole of that time the Phocians were safe. 19.58We returned from the oath-taking embassy on the thirteenth of Scirophorion, when Philip was already at Thermopylae and making promises to the Phocians which they were not disposed to believe. The proof of that is that otherwise they would not have resorted to you. Then the Assembly, at which these men brought the whole business to ruin with their lies and cajolery, was held on the sixteenth of Scirophorion. 19.59Now I calculate that the news from Athens reached the Phocians on the fourth day after that date, for there were Phocian envoys in the city, and they were interested in knowing what report these men would submit and what decree you would adopt. Therefore the twentieth was the day on which we reckon that the Phocians received the news, that is, the fourth day after the sixteenth. Then followed the twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty-third; and on the twenty-third the convention was made, and the fortunes of Phocis perished and came to an end. 19.60How, then, is this date proved? On the twenty-seventh, when you were holding an assembly at Peiraeus to discuss dockyard business, Dercylus arrived from Chalcis with the intelligence that Philip had put the whole affair into the hands of the Thebans, and he computed that it was then the fourth day after the convention. Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven: that makes it the fourth day. Therefore these dates, together with their own reports and decrees, all convict these men of having co-operated with Philip, and they share with him the guilt of the destruction of the Phocians. 19.61Again, the consideration that not a city of the Phocians was taken forcibly, whether by blockade or assault, and yet that they were all brought to utter ruin under the convention, is a convincing proof that they perished because they had been persuaded through these men that Philip would deliver them; for about his character they had no illusions. Now give me our treaty with the Phocians, and the Amphictyonic decrees, under which they dismantled their defences. These documents will show you on what footing you stood with them, and what treatment they have received by the fault of these wicked men. Read.Alliance of the Phocians and the Athenians

19.62These are the relations that subsisted between you and them—friendship, alliance, succor. Now hear what they have suffered through the man who thwarted the succor you owed them. Read.Convention between Philip and the Phocians

You hear it, men of Athens. A convention between Philip and the Phocians, it says, not between the Thebans and the Phocians, or the Thessalians and the Phocians, or the Locrians, or any other of the nationalities then present. Again, it says that the Phocians are to surrender their cities to Philip, not to the Thebans, or the Thessalians, or any other people. 19.63Why? Because you had been assured by Aeschines that Philip had come to deliver the Phocians. In Aeschines they had confidence; to Aeschines they looked for aid; with Aeschines they were making their peace. Read the other documents. Now you shall see to what sufferings they were brought by that confidence. Does the story agree with, does it in any way resemble, those reports of Aeschines? Read.Decrees of the Amphictyonic Council

19.64Men of Athens, nothing more awful or more momentous has befallen in Greece within living memory, nor, as I believe, in all the history of the past. Yet through the agency of these men all these great and terrible transactions have been dominated by a single individual, though the city of Athens is still in being, the city whose ancestral prerogative it was to stand forth as the champion of the Hellenic race, and declare that such things shall not be. In what fashion these unhappy Phocians have perished you may learn, not from the decrees alone,