| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 7.11 | Dem. 7.23 (Greek) | >>Dem. 7.33 |
7.19But that is just the one thing that you cannot have forgotten; for at the same meeting of the Assembly Philip's ambassadors put his case before you and the decree was duly proposed, so that, as the decree was recited immediately after the conclusion of the speeches, it was impossible for you to pass at once a resolution which gives the lie to the ambassadors. So it is not against me but against you that his letter is aimed, alleging that you have sent back to him your decision on questions that were never put before you.
7.20Why, the ambassadors themselves, whom your resolution flatly contradicted, when you read them your answer and offered them hospitality, did not venture to come forward and say, “You misrepresent us, men of Athens ; you say we have said something that we never did say.” No; they held their tongues and took their leave. But I want, men of Athens—for Pytho , who was one of the ambassadors, made an excellent impression on you by his address—I want to recall to you the exact words he used, for I am sure you must remember them.
7.21His language was pretty much that of Philip's present letter. For while accusing those of us who misrepresent Philip, he at the same time blamed you because, though Philip is eager to benefit you and prefers your friendship to that of any other state, you constantly thwart him, lending an ear to false accusers, who both beg money of him and slander him; for tales of that sort, when he is told that he was traduced and that you believed what was said, make him change his mind, since he finds himself distrusted by the very people whom it has been his aim to benefit.
7.22Pytho therefore urged public speakers not to attack the peace, because it was not good policy to rescind it, but to amend any unsatisfactory clause, on the understanding that Philip was prepared to fall in with your suggestions. If, however, the speakers confined themselves to abusing Philip without drafting any proposals which, while preserving the terms of peace, might clear Philip of suspicion, he asked you to pay no attention to such fellows.
7.23And you approved these arguments and said that Pytho was right, as indeed he was. He made these statements, however, not in order that all those advantages that Philip had paid so much money to secure might be struck out of the treaty, but because he had been so instructed by his schoolmasters here in Athens , who did not imagine that anyone would propose to annul the decree of Philocrates, which lost us Amphipolis .
Athens , I did not venture to propose anything that was unconstitutional, but it was not so to propose the direct contrary of Philocrates' decree, as I can prove to you. For the decree of Philocrates, through which you lost Amphipolis , was itself contrary to the earlier decrees by which you claimed possession of that territory.
7.25So it was this decree of Philocrates that was unconstitutional, nor would it have been possible to draft a constitutional proposal in conformity with his unconstitutional decree. By drafting mine to agree with the earlier decrees, which were constitutional and which also kept your territory intact, I both kept within the constitution and was able to convict Philip of trying to deceive you and of wishing, not to amend the peace, but to bring discredit on those who were pleading your cause.
7.26You are all aware that, after conceding the right to amend the peace, he now denies it. He says that Amphipolis is his, because your decree that he should keep what he held confirmed his right. It is true that you passed that decree, but you never admitted his right to Amphipolis , for it is possible to “hold” what belongs to another, and it is not all “holders” who hold what is their own, but many are in possession of what is really another's. So his clever quibble is merely foolish.
7.27Moreover he remembers the decree of Philocrates, but he has quite forgotten the letter sent to you when he was besieging Amphipolis , in which he admitted that Amphipolis was yours; for he said that when he had taken it he would “restore” it to you, implying that it was your property, and not that of the holders.
7.28Apparently those who inhabited Amphipolis , before Philip took it, were holding Athenian territory; but when he has taken it, it is no longer our territory, but his own, that he holds; and in the same way at Olynthus and Apollonia and Pallene he is in possession of his own property, not that of others.
7.29Do you not see that his letter to you is all carefully calculated, so that his words and his actions may appear to conform to the universal standard of justice, while he has really shown supreme contempt for it in claiming for himself and denying to you territory which is yours by common consent and decree of the Greeks and of the King of Persia ? note
7.24As for me, men of
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 7.11 | Dem. 7.23 (Greek) | >>Dem. 7.33 |
