Philippic 3

So our ancestors thought that they were bound to consider the welfare of all Greeks, for except on that assumption bribery and corruption in the Peloponnese would be no concern of theirs; and in chastising and punishing all whom they detected, they went so far as to set the offenders’ names on a pillar. The natural result was that the Greek power was dreaded by the barbarian, not the barbarian by the Greeks. But that is no longer so. For that is not your attitude towards these and other offences. What then is your attitude?

You know it yourselves. For why should you bear the whole blame, when all the other Greeks are just as bad as you? That is why I assert that the present crisis calls for earnest zeal and wise counsel. What counsel?[*](The last two words seem pointless. Perhaps τίνος; is the attempt of a scribe to join the longer to the shorter version.) Do you want me to tell you, and will you promise not to be angry?

The clerk reads from an official record[*](A frank description of the Athenian attitude, which should follow here, has dropped out, and the lemma, which is found in S and other good MSS., seems to be a poor attempt to fill the gap. It is difficult to imagine any official document that would be of use to the orator here.)

Now there is a foolish argument advanced by those who want to reassure the citizens. Philip, they say, after all is not yet what the Lacedaemonians were; they were masters of every sea and land; they enjoyed the alliance of the king of Persia; nothing could stand against them: and yet our city defended itself even against them and was not overwhelmed. But for my own part, while practically all the arts have made a great advance and we are living today in a very different world from the old one, I consider that nothing has been more revolutionized and improved than the art of war.

For in the first place I am informed that in those days the Lacedaemonians, like everyone else, would spend the four or five months of the summer season in invading and laying waste the enemy’s territory with heavy infantry and levies of citizens, and would then retire home again; and they were so old-fashioned, or rather such good citizens,[*](The Greek means true to the spirit of a free, constitutional state. Aristotle describes the πολιτικὸν πλῆθος as one which is naturally warlike and qualified to rule or be ruled according to laws which distribute offices by merit (Aristot. Pol. 3.17.4).) that they never used money to buy an advantage from anyone, but their fighting was of the fair and open kind.