On the Chersonese

Demosthenes

Demosthenes. Vol. I. Olynthiacs, Philippics, Minor Public Speeches, Speech Against Leptines, I-XVII, XX. Vince, J. H., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930 (printing).

the Thebans he is now misleading, having handed over Boeotia to them and relieved them of a long and trying war. So each of these states has reaped some benefit from him; some of them have already paid the penalty, as all men know; the rest will pay it whenever the day of reckoning comes. As for you, I say nothing of your losses in war,[*](Some such words seem necessary to avoid a contradiction. The Greek is probably corrupt, though the same reading is found in Dem. 10.65.) but in the very act of accepting the peace, how completely you were deceived, how grievously you were robbed!

Were you not deceived about Phocis, Thermopylae, the Thraceward districts, Doriscus, Serrium, Cersobleptes himself? Is not Philip now holding the city of the Cardians, and admitting that he holds it? Why then does he deal thus with the other Greeks, but not with you in the same way? Because ours is the one city in the world where immunity is granted to plead on behalf of our enemies, and where a man who has been bribed can safely address you in person, even when you have been robbed of your own.