Philippic 4

Therefore, just as each one of us has a parent, so ought we to regard the collective citizens as the common parents of the whole State, and so far from depriving them of anything that the State bestows, we ought, if there were no such grant, to look elsewhere for means to save any of their wants from being overlooked.

So then, if the wealthy would accept this principle, I think they would be doing not only what is fair, but also what is expedient; for to deprive one citizen of necessaries is to make many of them unite in disaffection towards the government. I would also counsel the poorer classes to abolish the grievance which makes the propertied class discontented with the system, and gives them just cause for assailing it.

I proceed, in the same way as before, to state the case for the rich, and I shall not shrink from speaking the truth. For I cannot imagine anyone, or at least any Athenian, so obdurate and cruel-hearted as to feel annoyed when he sees the poor and those who lack necessaries receiving these boons.

But where does our practice break down, and where lies the grievance? It is when the rich see certain persons transferring this usage from public moneys to private property; when the speaker is raised to instant greatness among you and even to immortality, as far as his privilege can secure it; and when your shouts of open approval are contradicted by your secret vote.[*](The recognized appropriation of public money for the Theoric Fund is imitated by demagogues, who prosecute the rich in order that their fines and confiscations may be used for similar benefits. The demagogue thus acquires undue influence and, being privileged, is unassailable. Meanwhile the people, sitting as a jury, applaud the rich man when he skilfully defends his rights, but cast their votes against him.)

All this breeds distrust and resentment. For we are bound, Athenians, to share equitably with one another the privileges of citizenship, the wealthy feeling secure to lead their own lives and haunted by no fears on that account, but in the face of dangers making over their property to the commonwealth for its defence; while the rest must realize that State-property is common property, duly receiving their share of it, but recognizing that private wealth belongs to the possessor. In this way a small state grows great, and a great one is kept great. This may pass for a verbal statement of the duties of each class; for the legal performance of those duties some organization is necessary.

Of our present difficulties and of the existing confusion the causes are many and of long standing, but if you are willing to hear them, I am ready to speak. Men of Athens, you have deserted the post in which your ancestors left you; you have been persuaded by politicians of this sort that to be paramount in Greece, to possess a standing force, and to help all the oppressed, is a superfluous task and an idle expense; while you fondly imagined that to live in peace, to neglect all your duties, to abandon all your possessions and let others seize them one by one, ensured wonderful prosperity and complete security.

In consequence of this, a rival has stepped into the position that you ought to have filled, and it is he who has become prosperous and great and ruler over many things. And rightly so; for there is a prize, honorable, great, and glorious, a prize for which the greatest of our states once spent all their time in contending, but since misfortune has dogged the Lacedaemonians, and the Phocian War has left the Thebans no leisure, and we are heedless, he has grasped it without a struggle.

Therefore fear is the portion of the others, but his the possession of many allies and a mighty force; and such great and manifold troubles now encompass all the Greeks that it is not easy to advise what ought to be done.

Yet, men of Athens, perilous as is the present situation in my judgement, none of all the Greeks are in greater danger than you, not only because you are the chief object of Philip’s plots, but because you are the most disposed to inaction. If therefore, noting the abundance and cheapness of goods for sale in your markets, you have been beguiled by these things into the belief that the city is in no danger, your estimate of the situation is contrary to all right and reason.

For a market or a fair might be judged on such evidence to be well or ill stocked; but a city, which every aspirant to the rule of Greece has regarded as his only possible opponent and as champion of the freedom of all, must surely not be tested by her market-stuff to see whether all is well with her, but by her ability to trust the loyalty of her allies, by her strength in ams—these are the qualities that you must look for in the city; and these in your case are all untrustworthy and unsound.

You will understand it if you look at it in this way. When have the affairs of Greece been in the greatest confusion? For no other occasion than the present could possibly be named by anyone. All during the past Greece was divided into two camps, the Lacedaemonians’ and ours, and of the other Greeks some took their orders from us, others from them. The king of Persia, in himself, was equally distrusted by all, but by taking up the cause of the losing side in the struggle, he retained their confidence until he could put them on an equality with the others; but thereafter he was no less hated by those he had saved than by those who had been his enemies from the beginning.

But in the first place, the king is now well-disposed to all the Greeks, and yet to us least of all, unless we can effect some immediate improvement. In the second place, many so-called protectors are springing up everywhere, and all states are rivals for the leadership, but unfortunately some hold aloof, in mutual jealousy and distrust, and so each state has isolated itself—Argives, Thebans, Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Arcadians, ourselves.

But yet, though Greek politics are split up into so many factions under so many powers, in no state, if I must speak the truth freely, would you find the government offices and the council chambers less occupied with Greek affairs than here at Athens; and naturally so, for neither through love nor trust nor fear does anyone hold communication with us.

And this is not due to a single cause, Athenians, or you might easily remedy it, but to many errors of every kind throughout the past. Without enumerating these, I will mention one on which all the rest turn, only beseeching you not to be offended with me, if I speak the truth boldly. It is the selling of your interests at every opportunity; your share in the bargain is leisure and inaction, which charm you out of your resentment against your betrayers, but others reap the rewards.

The other errors it is not worth while to investigate now, but whenever any question arises that concerns Philip, instantly up jumps someone and says there must be no nonsense talked, no declarationtion of war, and he at once goes on to add 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[*](i.e. by diverting money from the Theoric Fund to military objects.); and their other statements are as true as they can make them.

But surely it is not to you that they should recommend peace, for you have taken the advice and there you sit; it is to the man who is even now on the warpath; for if Philip can be won over, your share of the compact is ready to hand. Again, they should reflect that the irksome thing is not the expense of securing our safety, but the doom that will be ours if we shrink from that expense. As for the plunder of your wealth, they ought to prevent that by proposing some way of checking it and not by abandoning your interests.

And yet it is just this that rouses my indignation, that some of you should be distressed at the prospect of the plunder of your wealth, when you are quite competent to protect it and to punish any offender, but that you are not distressed at the sight of Philip thus plundering every Greek state in turn, the more so as he is plundering them to injure you.

Why then, men of Athens, has none of these speakers ever admitted that Philip is violating rights and provoking war, when he is thus openly violating rights and subduing cities, but when others urge you not to give way to Philip nor submit to these losses, they say they are provoking war? It is because they want the blame for the sufferings that the war will entail—for it is inevitable, yes, inevitable that the war should cause much distress—to be laid at the doors of those who believe they are your wisest counsellors.

For they are convinced that if you offer a whole-hearted and unanimous opposition to Philip, you will beat him and they will have no further chance of earning his pay, but that if at the first alarm of war you throw the blame on certain persons and devote your energies to bringing them to trial, they themselves by accusing them will gain both their ends—reputation with you and money from him, while you will punish the men who have spoken in your interests for the faults which you ought to punish in their accusers.

Such are their hopes, and such is the design of the accusation that certain persons wish to provoke war. But I am absolutely certain that, without waiting for any Athenian to propose a declaration of war, Philip is in possession of much of our territory and has just dispatched a force against Cardia. If, however, we like to pretend that he is not at war with us, he would be the greatest fool alive if he tried to disprove that; for when the victims deny the wrong, what should the malefactor do?