Delphi Complete Works of Demosthenes

by Demosthenes

  Why then, you may ask, do I choose the present time for these remarks? Because I think that, as the principle that all citizens should serve for pay is displeasing to some people, and yet the advantage of organization and equipment is approved by all, you ought to begin the business at this point, giving everyone a chance of stating his views on the subject. For the case stands thus: if you are convinced that now is the opportunity for these reforms, all things will be ready when the need of them arrives, but if you pass over the opportunity as unsuitable, then, just when you want to use them, you will be compelled to begin your preparations. [12]

  It has been before now remarked, men of Athens, by some speaker — not one of the great body of citizens, but one of those who are likely to have a fit if these reforms are carried out— “What good have we ever got from the speeches of Demosthenes? He comes forward, whenever he thinks well, fills our ears with phrases, denounces our present state, extols our ancestors, and then descends from the platform after raising our hopes and inflating our pride.” [13] But if I could only induce you to accept any of my proposals, I think that I should confer such benefits on the State that if I tried to describe them now, many of you would disbelieve them, as being too good to be true. And yet even this too I consider no mean benefit, if I accustom you to listen to the best advice. For he who would benefit the State, Athenians, must first purge your ears, for they have been poisoned; so many lies have you been accustomed to hear — anything, in fact, rather than the best advice. [14] Let me give you an instance, and let no one interrupt me till I have finished my story. You know that a day or two ago the treasury of the Parthenon was broken into. So the speakers in the Assembly, one and all, cried that the democracy was overthrown, that the laws were null and void, and so on. And yet, Athenians, though the culprits — mark whether my words are true — deserved death, it is not through them that the democracy is endangered. Again, a few oars were stolen. “Scourge the thieves torture them,” cried the orators; “the democracy is in danger.” But what is my opinion I say, like the others, that the thief deserves death, but not that the democracy is endangered by such means. [15] The real danger to democracy no one is bold enough to name; but I will name it. It is in danger when you, men of Athens, are wrongly led, when in spite of your numbers you are helpless, unarmed, unorganized and at variance, when no general or anyone else pays any heed to your resolutions, when no one cares to tell you the truth or set you right, when no one makes an effort to remedy this state of things. And that is what always happens now. [16] Yes, by heavens, men of Athens, and there are other phrases, false and injurious to the State, that have passed into your common speech, such as “In the law-courts lies your salvation,” and “It is the ballot-box that must save the State.” I know that these courts are sovereign to uphold the rights of citizen against citizen, but it is by arms that you must conquer the enemy, and upon arms depends the safety of the State. [17] For resolutions will not give your men victory in battle, but those who with the help of arms conquer the enemy shall win for you power and security to pass resolutions and to do what you will. For in the field you ought to be terrible, but in the courts sympathetic. [18]

  If my speeches seem to be greater than my own worth, that is itself a virtue in them. For a speech, if it is to be delivered on behalf of this great city and our wide interests, ought always to appear greater than the individual who utters it; it ought to approximate to your reputation, not to the reputation of the speaker. But none of the men whom you delight to honor speaks like that, and I will tell you what their excuse is. [19] Men who aim at office and at official rank go to and fro cringing to the favours of the electorate; each one’s ambition is to join the sacred ranks of the generals, not to do a man’s work. If anyone is really capable of undertaking a job, he thinks that by exploiting the reputation and renown of Athens, profiting by the absence of opposition, holding out hopes to you and nothing but hopes, he will be sole inheritor of your advantages — and so he is; but if you act as your own agents in every case, he will only have his equal share with the rest, both in the labours and also in their results. [20] The politicians, absorbed in their profession, neglect to devise the best policy for you and have joined the ranks of the office-seekers; and you conduct your party-politics as you used to conduct your tax-paying — by syndicates. There is an orator for chairman, with a general under him, and three hundred to do the shouting. The rest of you are attached now to one party and now to another. Hence all that you gain is that So-and-so has a public statue and So-and-so makes his fortune — just one or two men profiting at the expense of the State. The rest of you are idle witnesses of their prosperity, surrendering to them, for the sake of an easy life from day to day, the great and glorious prosperity which is yours by inheritance. [21]

  Yet consider how things were managed in the days of your ancestors, for you need not go abroad for examples to teach you your duty. Take Themistocles, who was your general in the sea-fight at Salamis, and Miltiades, who commanded at Marathon, and many more whose good services were far greater than those of our present generals: verily our ancestors put up no bronze statues to them, but rewarded them as men in no way superior to themselves. [22] For truly, men of Athens, they never robbed themselves of any of their achievements, nor would anyone dream of speaking of Themistocles’ fight at Salamis, but of the Athenians’ fight, nor of Miltiades’ battle at Marathon, but of the Athenians’ battle. But now we often hear it said that Timotheus took Corcyra, that Iphicrates cut up the Spartan detachment, or that Chabrias won the sea-fight off Naxos. For you seem to waive your own right to these successes by the extravagant honors which you have bestowed on each of these officers. [23] Rewards to citizens, rightly thus granted by our ancestors, are wrongly granted by you. But how about foreigners? When Meno of Pharsalus gave twelve talents of silver towards the war at Eion near Amphipolis and supported us with two hundred cavalry of his own vassals, our ancestors did not vote him the citizenship, but only gave him immunity from taxes. [24] On an earlier occasion, when Perdiccas, who was king of Macedonia at the time of the Persian invasions, destroyed the barbarians who were retreating after their defeat at Plataea and so completed the discomfiture of the Great King, they did not vote him the citizenship, but only gave him immunity from taxes; because, I presume, they regarded their own country as great, glorious, and venerable, and as something greater than any service rendered. But now, Athenians, you make citizens of the scum of mankind, menial sons of menial fathers, charging a price for it as for any other commodity. [25] You have got into the habit of acting thus, not because in ability you are inferior to your ancestors, but because it was second nature with them to have a high opinion of themselves, while you, Athenians, have lost that virtue. You cannot, I suppose, have a proud and chivalrous spirit, if your conduct is mean and paltry, any more than your spirit can be mean and humble, if your conduct is honorable and glorious; for whatever a man’s pursuits are, such must be his spirit. [26]

  But reflect on what might be named as the outstanding achievements of your ancestors and of yourselves, if haply the comparison may yet enable you to become your own masters. For five and forty years they commanded the willing obedience of the Greeks; more than ten thousand talents did they accumulate in our Acropolis; many honorable trophies for victories on sea and on land did they erect, in which even yet we take a pride. Yet remember that they erected them, not that we might wonder as we gaze at them, but that we might also imitate the virtues of the dedicators. [27] Thus did our ancestors; but as for us, who have gained, as you all see, a clear field, consider whether we can match them. Have we not wasted more than fifteen hundred talents on the needy communities of Greece? Have we not squandered our private estates, our public funds, and the contributions of our allies? Have not the allies gained in war been lost in the peace? [28] But, it may be said, in these respects alone things were better then than now, but in other respects worse. Far from it; but let us examine any instance you please. The buildings which they l
eft behind them to adorn our city — temples, harbors, and their accessories — were so great and so fair that we who come after must despair of ever surpassing them; the Propylaea yonder, the docks, the porticoes and the rest, with which they beautified the city that they have bequeathed to us. [29] But the private houses of those who rose to power were so modest and so in accordance with the style of our constitution that the homes of their famous men, of Themistocles and Cimon and Aristides, as any of you can see that knows them, are not a whit more splendid than those of their neighbors. [30] But today, men of Athens, while our public works are confined to the provision of roads and fountains, whitewash and balderdash （and I blame, not those who introduced these improvements — far from it! — but you, if you imagine that these are all that is required of you）, private individuals, who control any of the State-funds, have some of them reared private houses, not merely finer than the majority, but more stately than our public edifices, and others have purchased and cultivated estates more vast than they ever dreamed of before. [31] The cause of all this change is that then the people controlled and dispensed everything, and the rest were well content to accept at their hand honor and authority and reward; but now, on the contrary, the politicians hold the purse-strings and manage everything, while the people are in the position of lackeys and hangers-on, and you are content to accept whatever your masters dole out to you. [32]

  Such, in consequence, is the state of our public affairs that if anyone read out your resolutions and then went on to describe your performances, not a soul would believe that the same men were responsible for the one and for the other. Take for instance the decrees that you passed against the accursed Megarians, when they appropriated the sacred demesne, that you should march out and prevent it and forbid it; in favour of the Phliasians, when they were exiled the other day, that you should help them and not give them up to their murderers, and should call for volunteers from the Peloponnese. [33] That, Athenians, was all very noble and right and worthy of our city; but the resultant action was simply of no account. So your hostility is expressed in your decrees, but action is beyond your control. Your decrees accord with the traditions of Athens, but your powers bear no relation to your decrees. [34] I, however, would advise you — do not be angry with me — either to humble yourselves and be content to mind your own affairs, or else to get ready a more powerful force. If I felt sure that you were Siphnians or Cythnians or people of that sort, I should counsel you to be less proud, but since you are Athenians, I urge you to get your force ready. For it would be a disgrace, men of Athens, a disgrace to desert that post of honor which your ancestors bequeathed to you. [35] But besides it is no longer in your power, even if you wished it, to hold aloof from Greek affairs. For you have many exploits to your credit from the earliest times, and it would be disgraceful to abandon the friends you have, while it is impossible to trust your enemies and allow them to grow powerful. In short, you stand in the same position as your statesmen stand to you — they cannot retire when they would; for you are definitely involved in the politics of Greece. [36]

  This, Athenians, is the sum of all that I have said. Your orators never make you either bad men or good, but you make them whichever you choose; for it is not you that aim at what they wish for, but they who aim at whatever they think you desire. You therefore must start with a noble ambition and all will be well, for then no orator will give you base counsel, or else he will gain nothing by it, having no one to take him at his word.

  ON THE TREATY WITH ALEXANDER

  Translated by C. A. Vince and J. H. Vince

  Our hearty assent, men of Athens, is due to those who insist that we should abide by our oaths and covenants, provided that they do so from conviction; for I believe that nothing becomes a democratic people more than zeal for equity and justice. Those, therefore, who are so emphatic in urging you to this course should not keep wearying you with speeches which are belied by their practice, but after submitting now to full inquiry, should either for the future be sure of your assent in these matters, or else make way for the counsels of those who show a truer conception of what is just, [2] so that you may either voluntarily submit to wrong, making the wrongdoer a free gift of your submission, or having definitely resolved to put justice before all other claims, may pursue your own interests, clear from all reproach, without further hesitation. But from the very terms of the compact and from the oaths which ratified the general peace, you may at once see who are its transgressors; and that those transgressions are serious, I will prove to you concisely. [3]

  Now if you were asked, men of Athens, what form of compulsion would most rouse your indignation, I think that if the sons of Pisistratus had been alive at the present time and someone tried to compel you to restore them, you would snatch up your weapons and brave any danger rather than receive them back, or if you did consent, you would be slaves, as surely as if you had been bought for money; nay, more so, inasmuch as no one would intentionally kill his own servant, but the victims of tyranny may be seen executed without trial, as well as outraged in the persons of their wives and children. [4] Therefore when Alexander, contrary to the oaths and the compacts as set forth in the general peace, restored those tyrants, the sons of Philiades, to Messene, had he any regard for justice? Did he not rather give play to his own tyrannical disposition, showing little regard for you and the joint agreement? [5] It is surely wrong that you should be highly indignant when you are the victims of such coercion, but should neglect all safeguards if it is employed somewhere else, contrary to the sworn agreement with you, and that we here at Athens should be urged by certain speakers to abide by the oaths, while they grant this liberty of action to the men who have so notoriously made those oaths of no effect. [6] But this can never happen, if you are willing to see justice done; for it is further stipulated in the compact that anyone who acts as Alexander has acted shall be the enemy of all the other parties to the compact, and his country shall be hostile territory, and all the parties shall unite in a campaign against him. So if we carry out the agreement, we shall treat the restorer of the tyrants as an enemy. [7]

  But these champions of tyranny might urge that the sons of Philiades were tyrants of Messene before the compact was made, and that that was why Alexander restored them. But it is a ridiculous principle to expel the Lesbian tyrants on the ground that their rule is an outrage — I mean the tyrants of Antissa and Eresus, who established themselves before the agreement — and yet to imagine that it is a matter of indifference at Messene, where the same harsh system prevails. [8]

  Again, the compact at the very beginning enjoins that the Greeks shall be free and independent. Is it not, then, the height of absurdity that the clause about freedom should stand first in the compact, and that one who has enslaved others should be supposed not to have acted contrary to the joint agreement? Therefore, men of Athens, if we are going to abide by our oaths and covenants and do what is just （for it is to this that these speakers, as I have said, are urging you）, it is our bounden duty to seize our arms and take the field against the transgressors with all who will join us. [9] Or do you think that opportunity sometimes so prevails that men pursue expediency even apart from justice — and yet now, when justice and opportunity and expediency all concur, will you actually wait for some other season to claim your liberties and the liberties of all the Greeks? [10]

  I come to another claim sanctioned by the compact. For the actual words are, “If any of the parties shall overthrow the constitution established in the several states at the date when they took the oaths to observe the peace, they shall be treated as enemies by all the parties to the peace.” But just reflect, men of Athens, that the Achaeans in the Peloponnese enjoyed democratic government, and one of their democracies, that of Pellene, has now been overthrown by the Macedonian king, who has expelled the majority of the citizens, given their property to their slaves, and set up Chaeron, the wrestler, as their tyrant. [11] But we ourselves are parties to the peace, which instructs us to tr
eat as enemies those who are guilty of such acts. Now in view of this, are we to obey these joint instructions and treat them as enemies, or will anyone be blackguard enough to say no — one of the hirelings in the pay of the Macedonian king, one of those who have grown rich at your expense? [12] For you may be sure they are not ignorant of these facts; but they have grown so insolent, with the tyrant’s troops for their bodyguard, that they insist on your observing the already violated oaths, as if Alexander’s absolute sovereignty extended over perjury also; and they compel you to rescind your own laws, releasing men who have been condemned in your courts and forcing you to sanction numberless other illegalities. [13] And their conduct is natural; for men who have sold themselves to a policy antagonistic to the interests of their country cannot trouble themselves about laws and oaths; they are to them mere terms which they employ to lead astray the citizens who come to the Assembly for diversion and not for careful inquiry, and who forget that present inaction will some day result in wild confusion. [14] My own advice, as I said at the start, is to believe them when they say that we ought to abide by the joint agreement, unless, when they insist on our abiding by the oaths, they interpret them as not forbidding any act of injustice, or imagine that no one will be sensible of the change from democracy to tyranny or of the overthrow of a free constitution. [15]