But he saw well, Athenians, that all these places are the open prizes of war, that the possessions of the absent naturally belong to the present, those of the remiss to them that will venture and toil.
Demosthenes explains Philip's success by asserting that opportunities and possessions naturally fall to those who are present, venture, and toil.
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He is convinced, you will not submit to be slaves; if you were inclined, you would not know how, having been accustomed to command: you will be able, should occasion offer, to give him more trouble than any people in the world.
For this reason he will show us no mercy, if he get us into his power: and therefore you must make up your minds, that the struggle will be one for life and death.
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.
You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.
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