Historical voices

You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.

If we admitted the truth of what would be your best possible answer, namely, that all you do is for honor and renown, I wonder what puts it into your head, that you ought from such motives to exert yourself and undergo toil and danger…

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.

For the riches of a state I consider to be allies, confidence, good-will; of all which you are destitute.

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.

Because our city is the only one where liberty is allowed to speak for the enemy, where a man taking a bribe may safely address the people, though they have been deprived of their possessions.

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.

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.

Philip desires not to subjugate your city, but to destroy it utterly.

If so, we must be slaves; for nothing else remains.

The reason is, that people wish to cast upon your faithful counselors the blame of any untoward events in the war; for war must necessarily be attended with many misfortunes.

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…

Yet this very thing makes me indignant, that some of you are pained at the thought of your treasury being robbed, though it depends on yourselves to guard it and to punish the criminal, but are not pained to see Philip plundering Greece…

Plunder of the treasury should be prevented by devising a plan for its safe custody, not by abandoning our interests.

We should consider as grievous, not what we expend for our deliverance, but what we shall suffer in case of refusal.

And no wonder; when neither friendship, nor confidence, nor fear leads any to negotiate with us.

But, divided as Greece is among so many parties and so many leaderships, if I must speak the truth freely, there is no state whose offices and halls of council appear more deserted by Grecian politics than ours.

If, seeing the abundance of commodities and cheapness in your market, you are beguiled into a belief that the state is in no danger, your judgment is neither becoming nor correct.

Yet, perilous as I conceive the present crisis to be for all, no people are in such danger as you, men of Athens; not only because Philip's designs are especially aimed at you, but because of all people you are the most remiss.

The result has been, to others terror, to him a vast alliance and extended power; while difficulties so many and so distressing surround the Greeks, that even advice is not easy to be found.

The Athenians ought not to promote lawsuits to increase court-fees; not to encourage prosecutions against wealthy citizens, in order to obtain fines and confiscations.

There can not, I believe, be found a wretch so hard-hearted--I will not say among Athenians, but among any other people--who would be sorry to see poor men, men without the necessaries of life, receiving these bounties.

If the rich will adopt this principle, I think they will act both justly and wisely; for to deprive any class of a necessary provision, is to unite them in disaffection to the commonwealth.

Accordingly, as each individual among us hath a parent, so should we regard the whole people as parents of the state, and, so far from depriving them of what the state bestows, we ought, in the absence of such bounty, to find other means…