For the Liberty of the Rhodians

Some of you, I suppose, remember that when you were discussing Persian affairs, I was the first to come forward with advice,[*](In the speech On the Navy-boards., Dem. 14) and I believe I was the only speaker, or perhaps one out of two, to say that I should think it prudent in you not to make your hostility to the King the pretext for your preparations, but while equipping yourselves against your existing enemies, to defend yourselves against him too, if he attempted to do you wrong. Nor did I fail to convince you that I was right, but you, too, approved of my suggestion.

My present speech, then, is the sequel of my former one. For indeed, if the King admitted me to his presence and asked me for my advice, I should give him the same that I gave you—to defend his own subjects, if any of the Greeks attacked them, but to claim no sovereignty over those who owed him no allegiance.

Now if you make it a general principle, men of Athens, to abandon to the King all places that he has got into his power, whether by surprise or by deceiving some of the inhabitants, then your principle is, I think, a wrong one; but if you feel that in the cause of justice you are bound to go to war and face the consequences, then, in the first place, the more you are determined on such action, the less frequently will it be necessary, and secondly, you will be showing the proper spirit.

To prove that there is precedent both for my proposal to free the Rhodians and for your action, if you adopt it, I will remind you of some things that you have done, and that successfully. You are the men, Athenians, who once sent Timotheus to the help of Ariobarzanes,[*](The satrap of Phrygia, who joined the revolt of the satraps in 362. He was soon afterwards betrayed and crucified.) adding this clause to your instructions, provided that he does not violate our treaty with the King. Timotheus, seeing that Ariobarzanes was in open revolt from the King and that Samos was garrisoned by Cyprothemis, who had been stationed there by Tigranes, the King’s viceroy, abandoned his intention of helping the satrap, but invested the island and used his force to liberate it;

and to this very day you have not been involved in war on those grounds. For no one would go to war as readily for aggrandizement as for the defence of his own possessions; but while all men fight desperately to keep what they are in danger of losing, it is not so with aggrandizement men make it, indeed, their aim, but if prevented, they do not feel that they have suffered any injustice from their opponents.