Do not be surprised, Philip, that I am going to begin, not with the discourse which is to be addressed to you and which is presently to be brought to your attention, but with that which I have written about Amphipolis.Amphipolis, a city in Macedonia near the mouth of the Strymon river, conquered and colonized by Athenians in 437 B.C. It was taken by Philip in 358 B.C., but the war with Athens was delayed until Philip seized Potidaea, 356 B.C. For I desire to say a few words, by way of preface, about this question, in order that I may make it clear to you as well as to the rest of the world that it was not in a moment of folly that I undertook to write my address to you, nor because I am under any misapprehension as to the infirmityIsocrates had now passed his ninetieth birthday. which now besets me, but that I was led advisedly and deliberately to this resolution.

For when I saw that the war in which you and our city had become involved over Amphipolis was proving the source of many evils, I endeavored to express opinions regarding this city and territory which, so far from being the same as those entertained by your friends, or by the orators among us, were as far as possible removed from their point of view.

For they were spurring you on to the war by seconding your covetousness, while I, on the contrary, expressed no opinion whatever on the points in controversy, but occupied myself with a plea which I conceived to be more than all others conducive to peace, maintaining that both you and the Athenians were mistaken about the real state of affairs and that you were fighting in support of our interests, and our city in support of your power; for it was to your advantage, I urged, that we should possess the territory of Amphipolis, while it was in no possible way to our advantage to acquire it.

Yes, and I so impressed my hearers by my statement of the case that not one of them thought of applauding my oratory or the finish and the purity of my style, as some are wont to do, but instead they marvelled at the truth of my arguments, and were convinced that only on certain conditions could you and the Athenians be made to cease from your contentious rivalry.

In the first place, you, for your part, will have to be persuaded that the friendship of our city would be worth more to you than the revenues which you derive from Amphipolis, while Athens will have to learn, if she can, the lesson that she should avoid planting the kind of coloniesSuch as Amphipolis, surrounded by warlike tribes. which have been the ruin, four or five times over, of those domiciled in them, and should seek out for colonization the regions which are far distant from peoples which have a capacity for dominion and near those which have been habituated to subjection—such a region as, for example, that in which the Lacedaemonians established the colony of Cyrene.Cyrene, in northern Africa. See Grote, iii. p. 445.

In the next place, you will have to realize that by formally surrendering this territory to us you would in fact still hold it in your power, and would, besides, gain our good will, for you would then have as many hostages of ours to guarantee our friendship as we should send out settlers into the region of your influence; while someone will have to make our own people see that, if we got possession of Amphipolis, we should be compelled to maintain the same friendly attitude toward your policy, because of our colonists there, as we did for the elder AmadocusAn alliance was entered into between Athens and Amadocus, the powerful Thracian king, 390 B.C. (Xen. Hell. 4.8.26). because of our landholders in the Chersonese.

As I continued to say many things of this tenor, those who heard me were inspired with the hope that when my discourse should be published you and the Athenians would bring the war to an end, and, having conquered your pride, would adopt some policy for your mutual good. Whether indeed they were foolish or sensible in taking this view is a question for which they, and not I, may fairly be held to account; but in any case, while I was still occupied with this endeavor, you and Athens anticipated me by making peace before I had completed my discourse; and you were wise in doing so, for to conclude the peace, no matter how, was better than to continue to be oppressed by the evils engendered by the war.

But although I was in joyful accord with the resolutions which were adopted regarding the peace, and was convinced that they would be beneficial, not only to us, but also to you and all the other Hellenes, I could not divorce my thought from the possibilities connected with this step, but found myself in a state of mind where I began at once to consider how the results which had been achieved might be made permanent for us, and how our city could be prevented from setting her heart upon further wars, after a short interval of peace.Cf. Isoc. 4.172-174.

As I kept going over these questions in my own thoughts, I found that on no other condition could Athens remain at peace, unless the greatest states of Hellas should resolve to put an end to their mutual quarrels and carry the war beyond our borders into Asia, and should determine to wrest from the barbarians the advantages which they now think it proper to get for themselves at the expense of the Hellenes. This was, in fact, the course which I had already advocated in the discourse.See Isoc. 4.17, where almost the same words are used.

Having pondered on these matters and come to the conclusion that there could never be found a subject nobler than this, of more general appeal, or of greater profit to us all, I was moved to write upon it a second time. Yet I did not fail to appreciate my own deficiencies; I knew that this theme called for a man, not of my years, but in the full bloom of his vigor and with natural endowments far above those of other men;

and I realized also that it is difficult to deliver two discourses with tolerable success upon the same subject, especially when the one which was first published was so written that even my detractors imitate and admire it more than do those who praise it to excess.

Nevertheless, disregarding all these difficulties, I have become so ambitious in my old age that I have determined by addressing my discourse to you at the same time to set an example to my disciples and make it evident to them that to burden our national assemblies with oratory and to address all the people who there throng together is, in reality, to address no one at all;The same sentiment is expressed in Isoc. Letter 1.6-7. See General Introd. pp. xxxvi. ff. that such speeches are quite as ineffectual as the legal codes and constitutionsPossibly a disparagement of Plato's and (see Blass, ii. p. 4), but more probably of Isocrates' unfriendly rival, Antisthenes, who, according to Diog. Laert. 6.1.16, wrote a work . drawn up by the sophists;

and, finally, that those who desire, not to chatter empty nonsense, but to further some practical purpose, and those who think they have hit upon some plan for the common good, must leave it to others to harangue at the public festivals, but must themselves win over someone to champion their cause from among men who are capable not only of speech but of action and who occupy a high position in the world—if, that is to say, they are to command any attention.

It was with this mind that I chose to address to you what I have to say—not that I singled you out to curry your favor, although in truth I would give much to speak acceptably to you. It was not, however, with this in view that I came to my decision, but rather because I saw that all the other men of high repute were living under the control of politics and laws,See 127 and General Introd. p. xlii. with no power to do anything save what was prescribed, and that, furthermore, they were sadly unequal to the enterprise which I shall propose;

while you and you alone had been granted by fortune free scope both to send ambassadors to whom ever you desire and to receive them from whom ever you please, and to say whatever you think expedient; and that, besides, you, beyond any of the Hellenes, were possessed of both wealth and power, which are the only things in the world that are adapted at once to persuade and to compel; and these aids, I think, even the cause which I shall propose to you will need to have on its side.

For I am going to advise you to champion the cause of concord among the Hellenes and of a campaign against the barbarian; and as persuasion will be helpful in dealing with the Hellenes, so compulsion will be useful in dealing with the barbarians. This, then, is the general scope of my discourse.

But I must not shrink from telling you plainly of the discouragements I met with from some of my associates; for I think the tale will be somewhat to my purpose. When I disclosed to them my intention of sending you an address whose aim was, not to make a display, nor to extol the wars which you have carried on—for others will do this—but to attempt to urge you to a course of action which is more in keeping with your nature, and more noble and more profitable than any which you have hitherto elected to follow,

they were so dismayed, fearing that because of my old age I had parted with my wits, that they ventured to take me to task—a thing which up to that time they had not been wont to do—insisting that I was applying myself to an absurd and exceedingly senseless undertaking. “Think of it!” they said. “You are about to send an address which is intended to offer advice to Philip, a man who, even if in the past he regarded himself as second to anyone in prudence, cannot now fail, because of the magnitude of his fortunes, to think that he is better able than all others to advise himself!

More than that, he has about him the ablest men in Macedonia, who, however inexperienced they may be in other matters, are likely to know better than you do what is expedient for him. Furthermore, you will find that there are many Hellenes living in his country, who are not unknown to fame or lacking in intelligence, but men by sharing whose counsel he has not diminished his kingdom but has, on the contrary, accomplished deeds which match his dreams.

For what is lacking to complete his success? Has he not converted the Thessalians, whose power formerly extended over Macedonia, into an attitude so friendly to him that every Thessalian has more confidence in him than in his own fellow countrymen? And as to the cities which are in that region, has he not drawn some of them by his benefactions into an alliance with him; and others, which sorely tried him, has he not razed to the ground?