On the Peace

These considerations you should bear in mind and not pay heed to those who gratify you for the moment, while caring nothing for the future, nor to those who profess to love the people, but are in fact the bane of the whole state; since in times past also when men of this character took over the supremacy of the rostrum,[*](Obviously sarcastic: Their “supremacy” spells disaster to the state.) they led the city on to such a degree of folly that she suffered the fate which I described a moment ago.

And indeed what is most astonishing of all in your conduct is that you prefer as leaders of the people, not those who are of the same mind as the men who made Athens great, but those who say and do the same kind of things as the men who destroyed her power; and you do this albeit knowing full well that it is not alone in making the city prosperous that good leaders are superior to the base,

but that our democracy itself under the leadership of the former remained unshaken and unchanged for many years,[*](A century, from the reforms of Cleisthenes in 510 to the revolution of 411 B.C.) whereas under the guidance of these men it has already, within a short period of time,[*](In 411 and 404 B.C.) been twice overthrown, and that, furthermore, our people who were driven into exile under the despots and in the time of the Thirty were restored to the state, not through the efforts of the sycophants,[*](False accusers, slanderers, professional blackmailers—a class of persons which sprang up like weeds in Athens after the age of Pericles. Their favorite device was to extort money by threatening or instituting law-suits. But the word was applied indiscriminately by Isocrates and others to demagogues and politicians of the opposite party. See Lafberg, Sycophancy in Athens. Cf. Aristoph. Pl. 850 ff. The term “flatterers” is used in 4.) but through those leaders who despised men of that character and were held in the highest respect for their integrity.[*](Aristides restored the people after the rule of the Pisistratidae and Thrasybulus after the rule of the Thirty—both men of unblemished reputation.)

Nevertheless, in spite of the many things which remind us how the city fared under both kinds of leadership, we are so pleased with the depravity of our orators that, although we see that many of our other citizens have been stripped of their patrimony because of the war and of the disorders which these sycophants have caused, while the latter, from being penniless, have become rich,[*](A frequent charge. See Isoc. 12.140 ff.; Dem. 23.208-209. Aeschines (Aeschin. 3.173) makes it against Demosthenes himself: “he maintains himself, not from his private income, but from your perils.” The popular orators were in a strong position to make or break the fortunes or the reputations of men and of cities. Isocrates attributes the bad treatment of the general Timotheus by the Athenians to the latter's failure to court the favor of the orators, which other military leaders took pains to do. See Isoc. 15.136. Generals in the field found oportunities to enrich themselves and were prudent enough to “cultivate” the popular leaders at home. Chares, particularly, had the reputation of doing this. See Isoc. 8.50, note. On the question of bribery at this time see Butcher, Demosthenes pp. 11 ff.) yet we are not aggrieved nor do we resent their prosperity

but remain patient with a condition of affairs wherein our city is reproached with doing violence to the Hellenes and extorting money from them,[*](See Aristoph. Wasps 655-724.) while these men reap the harvest,[*](Cf. Aristoph. Wasps 1114 ff.) and wherein our people, who are told by the sycophants that they ought to rule over the rest of the world, are worse off than those who are slaves to oligarchy,[*](See Isoc. 4.105.) while these men, who had no advantage to start with, have risen because of our folly from a mean to an enviable position.