| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 5.1 | Dem. 5.8 (Greek) | >>Dem. 5.19 |
5.4While I am well aware, Athenians, that to talk in this assembly about oneself and one's own speeches is a very profitable practice, if one has the necessary effrontery, I feel that it is so vulgar and so offensive that, though I see the necessity, I shrink from it. I believe, however, that you will form a better judgement of what I am going to propose, if I remind you of a few things that I have said on former occasions.
5.5For in the first place, Athenians, when it was proposed to take advantage of the unrest in Euboea note and side with Plutarchus in a war that would bring us more expense than glory, I was the first and indeed the only speaker to oppose it, and I narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by those who induced you for trifling gains to commit many serious errors. It was not long before you incurred disgrace and suffered indignities note such as no men have ever received from those whom they have helped, and so you realized the baseness of those to whom you then gave ear and the wisdom of the advice you received from me.
5.6Again, men of Athens , when I saw that Neoptolemus, the actor, enjoying safe conduct under cover of his profession, was doing his best to injure our city and was Philip's agent and representative at Athens , I once more came forward and addressed you, not out of private animosity or love of informing, as indeed my subsequent conduct has proved.
5.7And I shall not in this case, as in the former one, find fault with those who spoke in defence of Neoptolemus, for not a man defended him, but with yourselves. For if it had been a tragedy in the theater of Dionysus that you were watching and not a debate on the very existence of your state, you could not have shown more partiality to him and more ill-will against me.
5.8Yet I suppose that by this time you have all observed that after visiting the enemy, in order, as he alleged, to collect sums owing to him there which he might spend on public services here, and after making copious use of the argument that it was too bad to arraign men who were transferring wealth from Macedonia to Athens , he secured a safe conduct owing to the peace, converted into cash all the real property that he held here, and has absconded to Philip.
5.9There, then, you have two of my warnings, bearing testimony to the value of my earlier speeches, and uttered by me honestly and in strict conformity with the facts. Thirdly, men of Athens—and when I have given just this one further instance, I will at once pass on to some topics that I have omitted—when we ambassadors returned from administering the oaths for the peace,
5.10at that time there were some who assured us that Thespiae and Plataea would be rebuilt, that Philip, if he gained the mastery, would protect the Phocians and break up Thebes into villages, and that you would retain Oropus and receive Euboea in exchange for Amphipolis . Led on by these false hopes and cajoleries, you abandoned the Phocians against your own interests and against justice and honor. But you will find that I neither took part in this deception, nor passed it over in silence, but spoke out boldly, as I am sure you remember, saying that I had neither knowledge nor expectation of such results and that all such talk was nonsense.
Athens —my real or pretended cleverness note; nor will I claim that my knowledge and discernment were due to anything else than two things, which I will mention. One, men of Athens , was good luck, which my experience tells me is worth all the cleverness and wisdom in the world.
5.12The second is this: on public questions my estimates and decisions are disinterested, and no one can show that my policy and my speeches have been in any way bound up with my private gain. Hence I always see accurately the advantageous course as suggested by actual circumstances. But the instant you throw money into one scale, its weight bears down the judgement with it; and for him that has once done this, accurate and sound calculation becomes utterly impossible.
5.11Now all these instances, where I appear to have had a clearer foresight than the rest, I shall not refer to a single cause, men of
5.13Now there is one precaution which I think essential. If anyone proposes to negotiate for our city an alliance or a joint contribution note or anything of the sort, it must be done without detriment to the existing peace. I do not mean that the peace is a glorious one or even creditable to you, but, whatever we may think of it, it would better suit our purpose never to have made it than to violate it when made, because we have now sacrificed many advantages which would have made war safer and easier for us then than now.
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 5.1 | Dem. 5.8 (Greek) | >>Dem. 5.19 |
