Areopagiticus

I am in doubt whether to suppose that you care nothing for the public welfare or that you are concerned about it, but have become so obtuse that you fail to see into what utter confusion our city has fallen. For you resemble men in that state of mind—you who have lost all the cities in Thrace,[*](Not all the cities on the northern coast of the Aegean (Thrace), but those on the Chalcidian peninsula, notably Amphipolis Pydna, Potidaea, and Olynthus, which had fallen under the power or under the influence of Philip of Macedon. See Dem. 4.4.) squandered to no purpose more than a thousand talents on mercenary troops,[*](Athenian forces were now largely made up of paid foreigners, recruited from everywhere. See Isoc. 8.44-47; Dem. 4.20.)

provoked the ill-will of the Hellenes and the hostility of the barbarians, and, as if this were not enough, have been compelled to save the friends of the Thebans[*](Probably the Messenians, who had been made independent of Sparta by the Thebans. See Introduction to Isoc. 6.. Demosthenes, in his speech For the Megalopolitans, criticizes the Athenians for their folly in pledging themselves to aid the Messenians against Spartan aggression. See especially Dem. 16.9.) at the cost of losing our own allies[*](Such powerful states as Chios, Byzantium, and Rhodes were lost to the Athenian Confederacy by the peace following the “Social War.” Of the seventy-five cities which belonged to the Confederacy the majority remained loyal. See Isoc. 7.2.); and yet to celebrate the good news of such accomplishments we have twice now offered grateful sacrifices to the gods,[*](Diodorus (Dio. Sic. 16.22) records the celebration in Athens of the victory of Chares, supporting the rebellion of the Satrap Artabazus, over Artaxerxes III. See § 8, note. The occasion of the second celebration is not known.) and we deliberate about our affairs more complaisantly than men whose actions leave nothing to be desired!

And it is to be expected that acting as we do we should fare as we do; for nothing can turn out well for those who neglect to adopt a sound policy for the conduct of their government as a whole. On the contrary, even if they do succeed in their enterprises now and then, either through chance or through the genius of some man,[*](The reference is to the victorious campaigns of Conon and his son Timotheus. See Isoc. 4.142, 154; Isoc. 5.61-64; Isoc. 15.107 ff.) they soon after find themselves in the same difficulties as before, as anyone may see from what happened in our own history.

For when all Hellas fell under the power of Athens, after the naval victory of Conon and the campaign of Timotheus, we were not able to hold our good fortune any time at all, but quickly dissipated and destroyed it.[*](In the disastrous “Social War.”) For we neither possess nor do we honestly seek to obtain a polity which can properly deal with our affairs.