How comes it, ye men of Athens, that of this flagrant aggressor, this capturer of cities, no one has ever declared that he commits hostility or injustice, while those who counsel against submission and sacrifice are charged as the authors of war?
Demosthenes questions why Philip's clear aggression is ignored, while those who advocate for defense are blamed for inciting war.
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But I suppose, you inherit a reputation from your father and grandfather, which it were disgraceful in your own person to extinguish, whereas the ancestry of the state was ignoble and mean.
Yea, among these men, some have risen rapidly from poverty to wealth, from meanness and obscurity to repute and honor, while you, on the contrary, have fallen from honor to obscurity, from wealth to indigence.
They say that you should keep quiet, though you are injured; but they can not themselves keep quiet among you, though no one injures them.
Such is the truth, spoken with perfect freedom, purely from good-will and for the best: not a speech fraught with flattery and mischief and deceit, to earn money for the speaker, and to put the commonwealth into the hands of our enemies.
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