On Halonnesus

Demosthenes

Demosthenes. Vol. I. Olynthiacs, Philippics, Minor Public Speeches, Speech Against Leptines, I-XVII, XX. Vince, J. H., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930 (printing).

he will not restore your possessions, for he claims them as his own, and his rewards will not be delivered in this part of the world, for fear his motive should be misrepresented to the Greeks[*](As if unduly favoring the Athenians.); some other country, it seems, some new quarter will be assigned for the bestowal of your rewards.

As for the places held by you which he took in time of peace, violating the terms and breaking his engagements, since he has not a word to say but is clearly convicted of injustice, he expresses his willingness to refer the question to a fair and impartial court. But this is the only question that needs no such reference; the calendar is sufficient to decide it.

For we all know in what month and on what day the peace was made, and as surely also do we know in what month and on what day Fort Serreum and Ergisce and the Sacred Mount[*](Three small places on the Thracian Coast of the Aegean, taken by Philip from Cersobleptes, after the Athenians had accepted the peace of Philocrates (346), but before Philip had taken the oath.) were captured. Surely these things were not done in a corner; they need no judicial inquiry; everyone can find out which came first, the month in which the peace was made or that in which the places were taken.

Again, he says that he has restored all the prisoners that were taken in the war. Yet the man of Carystus,[*](A town in the south of Euboea.) the agent of our city, for whose recovery you sent three embassies—Philip was so anxious to oblige you that he killed him and did not even allow you to recover his corpse for burial.

With regard to the Chersonese, it is important to examine the terms of his dispatch to you and also to know what he is actually doing in the matter. For the whole of the land north of Agora, as being his own property and no concern of yours, he has handed over as a private estate to Apollonides of Cardia. Yet the boundary of the Chersonese is not Agora, but the altar of Zeus of the Marches, half way between Pteleum and the White Strand, where there was going to be a canal across the peninsula.

This is proved by the inscription on the altar of Zeus, which runs thus:

  1. The dwellers here have set this boundary-stone
  2. Midway `twixt Pteleum and the Silver Strand,
  3. And raised this altar fair, that men may own
  4. That Zeus is Warden of our No Mans Land.[*](If the reading is correct,ἀμμοπίηwill be the marches, which belong to no one and are therefore put under the protection of Zeus. Blass reads μοίρης σημέϊον ἀμμορίης τε᾽which leaves the last line rather in the air.)
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