all made with hands and require expense, but there is one common safeguard in the nature of prudent men which is a good security for all, but especially for democracies against despots. What do I mean? Mistrust. Keep this, hold to this; preserve this only, and you can never be injured. What do you desire? Freedom. Then see you not that Philip's very titles are at variance therewith? Every king and despot is a foe to freedom, an antagonist to laws. Will you not beware, I said, lest, seeking deliverance from war, you find a master?

They heard me with a tumult of approbation, and many other speeches they heard from the ambassadors, both in my presence and afterward; yet none the more, as it appears, will they keep aloof from Philip's friendship and promises. And no wonder that Messenians and certain Peloponnesians should act contrary to what their reason approves; but you, who understand yourselves, and by us orators are told how you are plotted against, how you are inclosed! you, I fear, to escape present exertion, will come to ruin ere you are aware. So doth the moment's ease and indulgence prevail over distant advantage.

As to your measures, you will in prudence, I presume, consult hereafter by yourselves. I will furnish you with such an answer as it becomes the assembly to decide upon.

Here the proposed answer was read

It were just, men of Athens, to call the persons who brought those promises, on the faith whereof you concluded peace. For I should never have submitted to go as ambassador, and you would certainly not have discontinued the war, had you supposed that Philip, on obtaining peace, would act thus; but the statements then made were very different. Ay, and others you should call. Whom? The men who declared after the peace, when I had returned from my second mission, that for the oaths, when, perceiving your delusion, I gave warning, and protested, and opposed the abandonment of Thermopylæ and the Phocians-that I, being a water-drinker, was naturally a churlish and morose fellow, that Philip, if he passed the straits, would do just as you desired, fortify Thespiæ and Platæa, humble the Thebans, cut through the Chersonese & at his own expense, and give you Oropus and Eubœa in exchange for Amphipolis. All these declarations on the hustings I am sure you remember, though you are not famous for remembering injuries. And, the most disgraceful thing of all, you voted in your confidence that this same peace should descend to your posterity; so completely were you misled. Why mention I this now, and desire these men to be called? By the gods, I will tell you the truth frankly and without reserve. Not that I may fall a-wrangling, to provoke recrimination before you, and afford my old adversaries a fresh pretext for getting more from Philip, nor for the purpose of idle garrulity. But I imagine that what Philip is doing will grieve you hereafter more than it does now. I see the thing progressing, and would that my surmises were false; but I doubt it is too near already. So when you are able no longer to disregard events, when, instead of hearing from me or others that these measures are against Athens, you all see it yourselves, and know it for certain, I expect you will be wrathful and exasperated. I fear then, as your ambassadors have concealed the purpose for which they know they were corrupted, those who endeavour to repair what the others have lost may chance to encounter your resentment; for I see it is a practice with many to vent their anger, not upon the guilty, but on persons most in their power. While, therefore, the mischief is only coming and preparing, while we hear one another speak, I wish every man, though he knows it well, to be reminded who it was persuaded you to abandon Phocis and Thermopylæ, by the command of which Philip commands the road to Attica and Peloponnesus, and has brought it to this, that your deliberation must be, not about claims and interests abroad, but concerning the defence of your home and a war in Attica, which will grieve every citizen when it comes, and, indeed, it has commenced from that day. Had you not been then deceived, there would be nothing to distress the state. Philip would certainly never have prevailed at sea and come to Attica with a fleet, nor would he have marched with a land force by Phocis and Thermopylæ: he must either have acted honourably, observing the peace and keeping quiet, or been immediately in a war similar to that which made him desire the peace. Enough has been said to awaken recollection. Grant, O ye gods, it be not all fully confirmed! I would have no man punished, though death he may deserve, to the damage and danger of the country.

NOTES

Generous, as regards the Greek states, whose independence the Athenians stand up for. This praise Demosthenes frequently claims for his countrymen, and, compared with the rest of the Greeks, they deserved it. Leland understood the word φιλανθρώπους in the same sense, though he translates it humane. We use the term philanthropic in a sense not unlike that of the orator; but, as Leland truly observes, "the distinction of Greek and barbarian precluded the rest of mankind from a just share in Grecian philanthropy"; and he might have added, that their notions of slavery were not in accordance with an enlarged humanity. Therefore, I prefer a word of a less arrogant meaning. Jacobs: billig. Francis: "filled with sentiments of exceeding moderation."

Alexander of Macedon, son of Amyntas, was sent by Mardonius, the Persian commander, to offer the most favourable terms to the Athenians if they would desert the cause of the Greeks. The Spartans at the same time sent an embassy to remind them of their duty. The spirited reply which the Athenians made to both embassies is related by Herodotus. The Thebans submitted to Xerxes, and fought against the Greeks at the battle of Platea. The Argives were neutral, chiefly from jealousy of Sparta. They demanded half the command of the allied army as a condition of their assistance, but this could not be complied with.

The simple εἰπεῖν in the original is more forcible than if it had been ἐπαινεῖν, or the like. Compare Shakespeare, "Coriolanus," act ii, scene ii:

"I shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus
Should not be uttered feebly...

For this last,
Before and in Corioli, let me say,
I can not speak him home."

Thessaly was anciently divided into four districts, each called a tetras, and this, as we learn from the third Philippic, was restored soon after the termination of the Sacred War. The object of Philip in effecting this arrangement was, no doubt, to weaken the influence of the great Thessalian families by a division of power; otherwise the Pheræan tyranny might have been exchanged for an oligarchy powerful enough to be independent of Macedonia. The decemvirate here spoken of (if the text be correct) was a further contrivance to forward Philip's views; whether we adopt Leland's opinion that each tetrarchy was governed by a council of ten, or Schaefer's, that each city was placed under ten governors. Jacobs understands the word decemvirate not to refer to any positive form of government, but generally to designate a tyranny, such as that which the Lacedæmonians used to introduce into conquered cities. So, for example, the Romans might have spoken of a decemvirate after the time of Appius. However this be, Philip seems to have contrived that the ruling body, whether in the tetrarchy or the decadarchy, should be his own creatures. Two of them, Eudicus and Simus, are particularly mentioned by Demosthenes as traitors.

Pylæ, which signifies gates, was a name applied by the Greeks to divers passes, or defiles, but especially to the pass of Thermopylæ, which opened through the ridges of Mount Eta into the country of the Epicnemidian Locrians, and was so called from the hot sulphu

reous

gushed from the foot of the mountain.

prings that gushed

• Whether this was moved by the orator himself, or formally read as his motion by the officer of the assembly, does not appear.

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THE THIRD PHILIPPIC

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ANY speeches, men of Athens, are made in almost every assembly about the hostilities of Philip-hos

tilities which ever since the treaty of peace he has been committing, as well against you as against the rest of the Greeks; and all (I am sure) are ready to avow, though they forbear to do so, that our counsels and our measures should be directed to his humiliation and chastisement: nevertheless, so low have our affairs been brought by inattention and negligence, I fear it is a harsh truth to say that if all the orators had sought to suggest, and you to pass resolutions for the utter ruining of the commonwealth, we could not, methinks, be worse off than we are. A variety of circumstances may have brought us to this state; our affairs have not declined from one or two causes only: but, if you rightly examine, you will find it chiefly owing to the orators, who study to please you rather than advise for the best. Some of whom, Athenians, seeking to maintain the basis of their own power and repute, have no forethought for the future, and therefore think you also ought to have none; others, accusing and calumniating practical statesmen, labour only to make Athens punish Athens, and in such occupation to engage her, that Philip may have liberty to say and do what he pleases. Politics of this kind are common here, and are the causes of your failures and embarrassment. I beg, Athenians, that you will not resent my plain speaking of the truth. Only consider. You hold liberty of speech in other matters to be the general right of all residents in Athens, insomuch that you allow a measure of it even to foreigners and slaves, and many servants may be seen among you speaking their thoughts more freely than citizens in some other states; and yet you have altogether banished it from your councils. The result has been, that