Philippic 4

Your habit, then, is not to listen until, as now, the events themselves are upon you, and not to discuss any question at your leisure but whenever Philip makes his preparations, you neglect the chance of doing the same, and you are too remiss to make counter-preparations; and if anyone speaks out, you drive him from the platform, but when you learn of the loss of this place or the siege of that, then you pay attention and begin to prepare.

But the time to have listened and made your decision was just then, when you would not do it; now, when you are listening, is the time to act and put your preparations to use. Therefore in consequence of these bad habits you alone reverse the general practice of mankind; for other people deliberate before the event, but you after the event.

The one thing that remains and that ought to have been done long ago, though even now the chance is not lost, I will tell you. There is nothing that the State needs so much for the coming struggle as money. Some strokes of good fortune we have enjoyed without our design, and if we make the right use of them, the desired results may perhaps follow. For first, the men whom the king of Persia trusts and has accepted as his benefactors,[*](The Thracians, thus honored for their services to Darius in his Scythian expedition. For the title cf. Hdt. 8.85 οἱ δ’ εὐργέται βασιλέος ὀροσάγγαι καλέονται Περσιστί. Such was the Mordecai, the man whom the king delighted to honor, Esther, c. 6.) hate Philip and are at war with him.

Secondly, the agent[*](If we may trust Ulpian, this was Hermeias of Atarneus, the friend of Aristotle, seized by the Rhodian Mentor and carried captive to the king of Persia. See Grote, c. 90.) who was privy to all Philip’s schemes against the king of Persia has been kidnapped, and the king will hear of all these plots, not as the complaint of Athenians, whom he might suspect of speaking for our own private advantage, but from the lips of the very man who planned and carried them out, so that their credit is established, and the only suggestion for our ambassadors to make is one which the king would be delighted to hear,