Then are ye so senseless, Athenians, as to imagine, that the same measures, which have brought the country from a prosperous to a poor condition, will bring it from a poor to a prosperous?
Demosthenes challenges the Athenians to recognize the futility of expecting different results from the same policies that led to their decline.
Share
More from Demosthenes
Our numerous losses in war may justly be charged to our own negligence; but that they happened not long ago, and that an alliance, to counterbalance them, is open to our acceptance, I must regard as manifestations of divine favor.
For it is plain to the Olynthians, that now they are fighting, not for glory or a slice of territory, but to save their country from destruction and servitude.
Because, I conceive, measuring his calculations by ambition, by his desire of universal empire, without regard to peace, quiet, or justice, he saw plainly, that to a people of our character and principles nothing could he offer or give…
As, therefore, by such means he rose, when every people imagined he would advance their interest, so ought he by the same means to be pulled down again, when the selfish aim of his whole policy is exposed.
Other voices in this conversation
