Answer to Philip’s Letter

It must now be clear to all of you, Athenians, that Philip never concluded a peace with you, but only postponed the war; for ever since he handed Halus[*](A town in the south of Thessaly on the Pagasaean Gulf; not to be confused with Halonnesus.) over to the Pharsalians, settled the Phocian question, and subdued the whole of Thrace, coining false excuses and inventing hollow pretexts, he has been all the time practically at war with Athens, though it is only now that he confesses it openly in the letter which he has sent.

I shall, however, try to prove to you that you must not quail before his power nor offer a half-hearted resistance, but must enter the war with an unsparing provision of men, money, and ships—in a word, with all your resources. For first, men of Athens, you may reasonably expect that your mightiest allies and supporters will be those gods whose sanction he has flouted and whose name he has taken in vain through his unjust violation of the peace.

Then again, he has at last come to the end of his policy of deception and his lavish promises of future benefit, which before helped him to power. The Perinthians and Byzantines with their allies realize that his aim is to deal with them even as he dealt with the Olynthians before.

The Thessalians recognize that he is determined to be their despot and not the president of a confederacy. The Thebans suspect him, because he keeps a garrison at Nicaea and has stolen into the Amphictyonic Council, and because he attracts to his court the embassies of the Peloponnesian powers and secures their allies for himself. Thus of his old friends some are even now his irreconcilable foes, others are no longer his hearty supporters, while all regard him with suspicion and dislike.

Then too—nor is this a matter of small importance—quite recently the satraps of Asia Minor sent a force of mercenaries and compelled Philip to raise the siege of Perinthus; but today their hostility is confirmed, the danger, if he reduces Byzantium, is at their very doors, and not only will they eagerly join the war against him.

but they will prompt the king of Persia to become our paymaster and he is richer than all the rest together, and his power to interfere in Greece is such that in our former wars with Sparta, whichever side he joined, he ensured their victory, and so, if he sides with us now, he will easily crush the power of Philip.

Now, admitting these great advantages, I cannot deny that Philip has used the peace to forestall us in occupying many fortresses, harbors, and other points of vantage; only I observe that when a league is knit together by goodwill, and when all the allied states have the same interests, then the coalition stands firm; but when, like Philip’s, it is based on treachery and greed and maintained by fraud and violence, then on some slight pretext or by some trifling slip it is instantly shattered and dissolved.

Moreover, men of Athens, frequent reflection has taught me that not only do Philip’s alliances end in suspicion and hostility, but also the various parts of his own kingdom are not united by such satisfactory and intimate ties as people imagine. For although in a general way the Macedonian power carries some weight and value as an auxiliary, yet by itself it is weak and, in face of such a stupendous task, even negligible.

and Philip, by his wars and his campaigns and by all those activities to which his greatness might be attributed, has really made it a less trusty weapon to his own hand. For you must not imagine, men of Athens, that his subjects share his tastes; you must rather reflect that he wants glory, but they security. He cannot gain his end without danger; they, thinking of children, parents, and wives left at home, are not so eager to court ruin and danger every day to oblige him.

From this you can gauge the feelings of the great body of the Macedonians towards Philip; while as regards his courtiers and captains of his mercenaries you will find that, though they have some repute for valor, they live in greater fear than those who have none; for these have only the enemy to fear, but those dread the sycophants and slanderers of the court more than a pitched battle.

These, again, have the whole army to support them when they face the hostile ranks, but those both have to bear the chief burden of the war, and, apart from that, it is their peculiar misfortune to fear the temper of their king. Moreover, if a common soldier is at fault, his punishment is proportioned to his deserts, but it is just when the officers are most successful that they are most exposed to unmerited curses and gibes.

And all this no one in his senses would refuse to believe; for those who have resided at his court agree that Philip is so jealous that he wants to take to himself all the credit of the chief successes, and is more annoyed with a general or an officer who achieves something praiseworthy than with those who fail ignominiously.

This being so, how is it that they have so long remained loyal to him? Because, men of Athens, at present his prosperity overshadows all such shortcomings, for success has a strange power of obscuring and covering men’s failings; but if he trips, all his weakness will be clearly revealed. For it is with the political as with the bodily constitution.

As long as a man is in good health, he is conscious of no unsoundness here or here, but when his health breaks down, every part is set a-working, be it a rupture or a sprain or any organ that is not perfectly healthy. So with all monarchies and oligarchies; as long as their arms prosper, few detect their weaknesses, but when they stumble, even as Philip must stumble beneath a burden that is greater than he can bear, then all their disadvantages are plain for all men to see.

Now if any of you, Athenians, seeing Philip’s good fortune, considers him a formidable and dangerous opponent, he is exercising a prudent forethought. For fortune is indeed a great weight in the scale; I might almost say it is everything in human affairs. And yet in many respects our good fortune is to be preferred to Philip’s.

For our prosperity is inherited from our ancestors, and is of an earlier date than the prosperity not only of Philip, but, roughly speaking, of all the kings that have ever reigned in Macedonia. Those kings actually paid tribute to Athens, but Athens never paid tribute to any power in the world. Moreover, we have a more secure claim than Philip upon the favour of heaven, in so far as our conduct has always been guided by greater regard for religion and for justice.

Why, then, was he more successful than we in the late war? I will be frank with you, men of Athens. It is because he always takes a personal share in the hardships and dangers of the campaign, never neglects a chance, never wastes any season of the year; while we—for the truth must out—sit here idle; we are always hanging back and passing resolutions and haunting the market-place to learn the latest news. Yet what more startling news could there be than that a Macedonian should insult Athenians, daring to send us such a letter as you have heard read a moment ago.

Philip’s resources include mercenary soldiers, and also, observe! certain mercenary orators here among us, men who are not ashamed to devote their lives to his service, thinking that they are carrying home his bribes, but blind to the fact that they are bartering all the interests of the State, and their own as well, for a paltry profit. We, on the other hand, make no attempt to foment a revolution in his kingdom, we decline to hire mercenaries, we shrink from taking the field.

It is not a strange thing, then, that he has gained ground at our expense in the late war, but rather that we, performing no single duty of a nation at war, think that we are going to defeat one who does everything that a grasping ambition demands.

Bearing this in mind, Athenians, and reflecting that it is not even in our power to pretend that we are at peace, for Philip has already issued a declaration of war and followed it up by active hostilities, it is necessary to spare no expense, public or private, to take the field eagerly and in full force, wherever the opportunity occurs, and to employ abler generals than before.