To Philip

Besides, you will find as many soldiers at your service as you wish, for such is now the state of affairs in Hellas that it is easier to get together a greater and stronger army from among those who wander in exile than from those who live under their own polities.[*](See Isoc. 4.168 and note.) But in those days there was no body of professional soldiers, and so, being compelled to collect mercenaries from the several states, they had to spend more money on bounties[*](Cyrus gave Clearchus about ten thousand pounds with which to levy mercenaries. Xen. Anab. 1.1.9.) for their recruiting agents than on pay for the troops.

And, lastly, if we should be inclined to make a careful review of the two cases and institute a comparison between you, who are to be at the head of the present expedition and to decide on every measure, and Clearchus, who was in charge of the enterprise of that day, we should find that he had never before been in command of any force whatever on either land or sea and yet attained renown from the misfortune which befell him on the continent of Asia;

while you, on the contrary, have succeeded in so many and such mighty achievements that if I were making them the subject of a speech before another audience, I should do well to recount them, but, since I am addressing myself to you, you would rightly think it senseless and gratuitous in me to tell you the story of your own deeds.

It is well for me to speak to you also about the two Kings, the one against whom I am advising you to take the field, and the one against whom Clearchus made war, in order that you may know the temper and the power of each. In the first place, the father[*](Artaxerxes II., 405-359 B.C.) of the present King once defeated our city[*](This is inexact. He is probably thinking of the defeat of the Athenians in the Peloponnnesian War in which Sparta had the assistance of Persia; but Artaxerxes II. came to the throne in the year of the battle of Aegospotami.) and later the city of the Lacedaemonians,[*](At the battle of Cnidus with the help of Conon, 394 B.C.) while this King[*](Artaxerxes III., 359-339 B.C.) has never overcome anyone of the armies which have been violating his territory.

Secondly, the former took the whole of Asia from the Hellenes by the terms of the Treaty[*](Treaty of Antalcidas. See Isoc. 4.115 ff., 175 ff.); while this King is so far from exercising dominion over others that he is not in control even of the cities which were surrendered to him; and such is the state of affairs that there is no one who is not in doubt what to believe—whether he has given them up because of his cowardice, or whether they have learned to despise and contemn the power of the barbarians.

Consider, again, the state of affairs in his empire. Who could hear the facts and not be spurred to war against him? Egypt was, it is true, in revolt[*](Isoc. 4.140, 161.) even when Cyrus made his expedition; but her people nevertheless were living in continual fear lest the King might some day lead an army in person and overcome the natural obstacles which, thanks to the Nile, their country presents, and all their military defenses as well. But now this King has delivered them from that dread; for after he had brought together and fitted out the largest force he could possibly raise and marched against them, he retired from Egypt not only defeated, but laughed at and scorned as unfit either to be a king or to command an army.

Furthermore, Cyprus and Phoenicia and Cilicia,[*](Isoc. 4.161.) and that region from which the barbarians used to recruit their fleet, belonged at that time to the King, but now they have either revolted from him or are so involved in war and its attendant ills that none of these peoples is of any use to him; while to you, if you desire to make war upon him, they will be serviceable.

And mark also that Idrieus,[*](Isoc. 4.162.) who is the most prosperous of the present rulers of the mainland, must in the nature of things be more hostile to the interests of the King than are those who are making open war against him; verily he would be of all men the most perverse if he did not desire the dissolution of that empire which outrages his brother,[*](Mausolus.) which made war upon himself, and which at all times has never ceased to plot against him in its desire to be master of his person and of all his wealth.

It is through fear of these things that he is now constrained to pay court to the King and to send him much tribute every year; but if you should cross over to the mainland with an army, he would greet you with joy, in the belief that you were come to his relief; and you will also induce many of the other satraps to throw off the King's power if you promise them “freedom” and scatter broadcast over Asia that word which, when sown among the Hellenes, has broken up both our empire and that of the Lacedaemonians.[*](“Freedom” of the Greeks from Athenian tyranny was the avowed object of the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 4.86. Cf. Isoc. 4.122.)

I might go on and endeavor to speak at greater length on how you could carry on the war so as to triumph most quickly over the power of the King; but as things are, I fear that I might lay myself open to criticism if, having had no part in a soldier's life, I should now venture to advise you, whose achievements in war are without parallel in number and magnitude. Therefore on this subject I think I need say nothing more. But to proceed with the rest of my discourse, I believe that both your own father[*](Amyntas. II.) and the founder of your kingdom,[*](Perdiccas I. See 32, note.) and also the progenitor of your race[*](Heracles. The latter was precluded by his divinity; Amyntas and Perdiccas by their death.)— were it lawful for Heracles and possible for the others to appear as your counsellors—would advise the very things which I have urged.

I draw my inference from their actions while they lived. For your father, in dealing with those states which I am urging you to cultivate, kept on friendly terms[*](With Athens, Aeschin. 2.26; with Sparta, Xen. Hell. 5.2.38.) with them all. And the founder of your empire, although he aspired higher than did his fellow citizens[*](Of Argos.) and set his heart on a king's power, was not minded to take the same road as others who set out to attain a like ambition.

For they endeavored to win this honor by engendering factions, disorder, and bloodshed in their own cities; he, on the other hand, held entirely aloof from Hellenic territory, and set his heart upon occupying the throne of Macedon. For he knew full well that the Hellenes were not accustomed to submit to the rule of one man, while the other races were incapable of ordering their lives without the control of some such power.

And so it came about, owing to his unique insight in this regard, that his kingship has proved to be quite set apart from that of the generality of kings: for, because he alone among the Hellenes did not claim the right to rule over a people of kindred race, he alone was able to escape the perils incident to one-man power. For history discovers to us the fact that those among the Hellenes who have managed to acquire such authority have not only been destroyed themselves but have been blotted, root and branch, from the face of the earth;[*](The Pisistratidae of Athens. A recent case in point was the murder of Alexander of Pherae. Cf. Isoc. 2.5.) while he, on the contrary, lived a long and happy life and left his seed in possession of the same honors which he himself had enjoyed.

Coming now to Heracles, all others who praise him harp endlessly on his valor or recount his labors; and not one, either of the poets or of the historians, will be found to have commemorated his other excellences—I mean those which pertain to the spirit. I, on the other hand, see here a field set apart and entirely unworked—a field not small nor barren, but teeming with many a theme for praise and with glorious deeds, yet demanding a speaker with ability to do them justice.

If this subject had claimed my attention when I was younger, I should have found it easy to prove that it was more by his wisdom, his lofty ambition, and his justice than by his strength of body that your ancestor surpassed all who lived before his day. But approaching the subject at my present age, and seeing what a wealth of material there is in it to discuss, I have felt that my present powers were unequal to the task, and I have also realized that my discourse would run on to twice the length of that which is now before you to be read. For these reasons, then, I have refrained from touching upon his other exploits and have singled out one only—a story which is pertinent and in keeping with what I have said before, while being of a length best proportioned to the subject now in hand.