Philippic 3

Many speeches are delivered, men of Athens, at almost every meeting of the Assembly, about the wrongs that Philip has been committing, ever since the conclusion of peace, not only against you but also against the other states, and all the speakers would, I am sure, admit in theory, though they do not put it in practice, that the object both of our words and deeds must be to check and chastise his arrogance; yet I perceive that all our interests have been so completely betrayed and sacrificed, that—I am afraid it is an ominous thing to say, but yet the truth—even if all who address you had wanted to propose, and all of you had wanted to pass, measures that were bound to bring our affairs into the worst possible plight, I do not think they could have been in a worse condition than they are today.

Perhaps, indeed, this condition of our affairs may be attributed to many causes and not just to one or two, but a careful examination will convince you that it is above all due to those who study to win your favour rather than to give you the best advice. Some of them, Athenians, interested in maintaining a system which brings them credit and influence, have no thought for the future and therefore think you should have none either; while others, by blaming and traducing those in authority, make it their sole aim that our city shall concentrate her attention on punishing her own citizens, while Philip shall be free to say and do whatever he pleases.

But such methods of dealing with public affairs, familiar though they are to you, are the cause of your calamities. I claim for myself, Athenians, that if I utter some home-truths with freedom, I shall not thereby incur your displeasure. For look at it this way. In other matters you think it is so necessary to grant general freedom of speech to everyone in Athens that you even allow aliens and slaves to share in the privilege, and many more menials may be observed among you speaking their minds with more liberty than citizens enjoy in other states; but from your deliberations you have banished it utterly.

Hence the result is that in the Assembly your self-complacency is flattered by hearing none but pleasant speeches, but your policy and your practice are already involving you in the gravest peril. Therefore, if such is your temper now, I have nothing to say; but if, apart from flattery, you are willing to hear something to your advantage, I am ready to speak. For though the state of our affairs is in every way deplorable, and though much has been sacrificed, nevertheless it is possible, if you choose to do your duty, that all may yet be repaired.

And what I am going to say may perhaps seem a paradox, but it is true. The worst feature of the past is our best hope for the future. What, then, is that feature? It is that your affairs go wrong because you neglect every duty, great or small; since surely, if they were in this plight in spite of your doing all that was required, there would not be even a hope of improvement. But in fact it is your indifference and carelessness that Philip has conquered; your city he has not conquered. Nor have you been defeated—no! you have not even made a move.

If, then, we were all agreed that Philip is at war with Athens and is violating the peace, the only task of a speaker would be to come forward and recommend the safest and easiest method of defence; but since some of you are in such a strange mood that, though Philip is seizing cities, and retaining many of your possessions, and inflicting injury on everybody, you tolerate some speakers who repeatedly assert in the Assembly that the real aggressors are certain of ourselves, we must be on our guard and set this matter right.

For there is grave danger that anyone who proposes and urges that we shall defend ourselves may incur the charge of having provoked the war. I therefore first of all state and define this question—whether it is in our power to discuss the alternative of peace or war.[*](Probably the second clause has no connection with the first, but is an alternative form of the beginning of the next sentence.)

If indeed Athens can remain at peace and if the choice rests with us— to take that point first—I personally feel that we are bound to do so; and if anyone says that we can, I call upon him to move a resolution and to do something and to play us no tricks; but if there is another person concerned, with sword in hand and a mighty force at his back, who imposes on you with the name of peace but himself indulges in acts of war, what is left but to defend ourselves? If you choose to follow his example and profess that you are at peace, I raise no objection.

But if anyone mistakes for peace an arrangement which will enable Philip, when he has seized everything else, to march upon us, he has taken leave of his senses, and the peace that he talks of is one that you observe towards Philip, but not Philip towards you. That is the advantage which he is purchasing by all his expenditure of money—that he should be at war with you, but that you should not be at war with him.

If we are going to wait for him to acknowledge a state of war with us, we are indeed the simplest of mortals; for even if he marches straight against Attica and the Piraeus, he will not admit it, if we may judge from his treatment of the other states.

For take the case of the Olynthians; when he was five miles from their city, he told them there must be one of two things, either they must cease to reside in Olynthus, or he in Macedonia, though on all previous occasions, when accused of hostile intentions, he indignantly sent ambassadors to justify his conduct. Again, when he was marching against the Phocians, he still pretended that they were his allies, and Phocian ambassadors accompanied him on his march, and most people here at Athens contended that his passage through Thermopylae[*](In July 346, when the Phocians were holding Thermopylae against Philip, the Athenians refused to help them, being misled by Aeschines and Philocrates, who represented that Philip’s real hostility was directed against the Thebans. See Dem. 18.35 and Dem. 5.10.) would be anything but a gain to the Thebans.

And then again quite lately, after entering Thessaly as a friend and ally, he seized Pherae and still retains it; and lastly, he informed those poor wretches, the people of Oreus, that he had sent his soldiers to pay them a visit of sympathy in all goodwill, for he understood that they were suffering from acute internal trouble, and it was the duty of true friends and allies to be at their side on such occasions.

And do you imagine that, while in the case of those who could have inflicted no harm, though they might perhaps have protected themselves against it, he preferred to deceive them rather than to crush them after due warning, in your case he will give warning of hostilities, especially when you are so eager to be deceived?

Impossible! For indeed he would be the most fatuous man on earth if, when you, his victims, charge him with no crime, but throw the blame on some of your own fellow-citizens, he should compose your mutual differences and jealousies, and invite you to turn them against himself, and should deprive his own hirelings of the excuses with which they put you off, saying that at any rate it is not Philip who is making war on Athens.

But, in heaven’s name, is there any intelligent man who would let words rather than deeds decide the question who is at peace and who is at war with him? Surely no one. Now it was Philip who at the very start, as soon as peace was concluded, before Diopithes was appointed general, before the force now in the Chersonese had been dispatched, proceeded to occupy Serrium and Doriscus and expelled from the Fort Serreum and the Sacred Mount the garrison which your own general had posted there.

Yet what did that move of his mean? For it was peace that he had sworn[*](Not strictly true; for Philip had not yet taken the oath, though the Athenians had. Hence Blass wished to read εἰρήνη . . . ὠμώμοτο.) to observe; and let no one say, What of all this? How do any of these things concern Athens? For whether they were small things, or whether they were no concern of yours, may be another question. But religion and justice, whether a man violates them in a small matter or in a great, have the same importance. Tell me now: when he sends mercenaries to the Chersonese, your claim to which has been recognized by the king of Persia and by all the Greeks, when he admits that he is helping the Cardians and writes to tell you so, what does he mean?

For he says that he is not at war, but for my part, so far from admitting that in acting thus he is not observing the peace with you, I assert that when he lays hands on Megara, sets up tyrannies in Euboea, makes his way, as now, into Thrace, hatches plots in the Peloponnese, and carries out all operations with his armed force, he is breaking the peace and making war upon you—unless you are prepared to say that men who bring up the siege-engines are keeping the peace until they actually bring them to bear on the walls. But you will not admit that; for he who makes and devises the means by which I may be captured is at war with me, even though he has not yet hurled a javelin or shot a bolt.

In what then consists your danger, if anything should happen? In the alienation of the Hellespont, in the control of Megara and Euboea by one who is at war with you, and in the defection of the Peloponnesians to his side. Am I still to say that the man who brings this siege-engine to bear on your city is at peace with you?

So far from saying that, I date his hostility from the very day when he wiped out the Phocians. I say that you will be wise if you defend yourselves now, but if you let the opportunity pass, you will not be able to act even when you desire to. I so far dissent, Athenians, from all you counsellors that I do not think you ought to trouble yourselves now about the Chersonese or Byzantium.

Help them, if you will, guard them from harm supply the troops already there with all that they require, but let your deliberations embrace all the Greek states and the great danger that besets them. But I wish to tell you the grounds for my alarm about our condition, so that if my reasoning is sound, you may adopt it as your own and take forethought for yourselves, even if you refuse to take it for the others also; but if I seem to you a driveler and a dotard, neither now nor at any other time pay any heed to me as if I were in my senses.