On the Chersonese

But if anyone thinks that all this means great expense and much toil and worry, he is quite correct, but if he reckons up what will hereafter be the result to Athens if she refuses to act, he will conclude that it is to our interest to perform our duty willingly.

For if you have the guarantee of some god, since no mere mortal could be a satisfactory surety for such an event that if you remain inactive and abandon everything, Philip will not in the end march against yourselves, by Zeus and all the other gods, it would be disgraceful and unworthy of you and of the resources of your city and the record of your ancestors to abandon all the other Greeks to enslavement for the sake of your own ease, and I for one would rather die than be guilty of proposing such a policy. All the same, if someone else proposes it and wins your assent, so be it: offer no resistance, sacrifice everything.

But if no one approves of this, and if on the contrary we all of us foresee that the more we allow him to extend his power, the stronger and more formidable we shall find him in war, what escape is open to us, or why do we delay? When, men of Athens, shall we consent to do our duty? Whenever it is necessary, you will say.

But what any free man would call necessity is not merely present now, but is long ago past, and from the necessity that constrains a slave we must surely pray to be delivered. Do you ask the difference? The strongest necessity that a free man feels is shame for his own position, and I know not if we could name a stronger; but for a slave necessity means stripes and bodily outrage, unfit to name here, from which Heaven defend us!

Therefore, although I would gladly touch on all the other topics and explain the way in which certain politicians are working your ruin, I will confine myself to pointing out that whenever any question arises that concerns Philip, instantly up jumps someone and tells you how good a thing it is to preserve peace, and what a bother it is to keep up a large army, and how certain persons want to plunder your wealth, and all that sort of thing; and by these speeches they put you off and afford leisure for Philip to do whatever he wishes.