On the Crown

After getting yourself enrolled on the register of your parish—no one knows how you managed it; but let that pass—anyhow, when you were enrolled, you promptly chose a most gentlemanly occupation, that of clerk and errand-boy to minor officials. After committing all the offences with which you now reproach other people, you were relieved of that employment; and I must say that your subsequent conduct did no discredit to your earlier career.

You entered the service of those famous players Simylus and Socrates, better known as the Growlers. You played small parts to their lead, picking up figs and grapes and olives, like an orchard-robbing costermonger, and making a better living out of those missiles than by all the battles that you fought for dear life. For there was no truce or armistice in the warfare between you and your audiences, and your casualties were so heavy, that no wonder you taunt with cowardice those of us who have no experience of such engagements.

However, passing by things for which your poverty may be blamed, I will address myself to actual charges against your way of living. When in course of time it occurred to you to enter public life, you chose such a line of political action that, so long as the city prospered, you lived the life of a hare, in fear and trembling and constant expectation of a sound thrashing for the crimes that burdened your conscience: although, when every one else is in distress, your confidence is manifest to all men.[*](Since the battle of Chaeronea.)

What treatment does a man, who recovered his high spirits on the death of a thousand of his fellow-citizens, deserve at the hands of the survivors? I shall omit a great many other facts that I might relate; for I do not think that I ought to recount glibly all his discreditable and infamous qualities, but only such as I may mention without discredit to myself.

And now, Aeschines, I beg you to examine in contrast, quietly and without acrimony, the incidents of our respective careers: and then ask the jury, man by man, whether they would choose for themselves your fortune or mine. You were an usher, I a pupil; you were an acolyte, I a candidate; you were clerk-at-the-table, I addressed the House; you were a player, I a spectator; you were cat-called, I hissed; you have ever served our enemies, I have served my country.

Much I pass by; but on this very day, I am on proof for the honor of a crown, and acknowledged to be guiltless; you have already the reputation of an informer, and the question at hazard for you is, whether you are still to continue in that trade, or be stopped for ever by getting less than your quota of votes. And that is the good fortune enjoyed by you, who denounce the shabbiness of mine!

Let me now read to you the testimony of the public services I have rendered, and you shall read for comparison some of the blank-verse you used to make such a hash of:

1. From gates of gloom and dwellings of the dead,[*](Eur. Hec. 1. The other quotations are unknown.)

1. Tidings of woe with heavy heart I bear,

1. Oh cruel, cruel fate!

(The Depositions are read)

Such has been my character in public life. In private life, if any of you are not aware that I have been generous and courteous, and helpful to the distressed, I do not mention it. I will never say a word, or tender any evidence about such matters as the captives I have ransomed, or the dowries I have helped to provide, or any such acts of charity.

It is a matter of principle with me. My view is that the recipient of a benefit ought to remember it all his life, but that the benefactor ought to put it out of his mind at once, if the one is to behave decently, and the other with magnanimity. To remind a man of the good turns you have done to him is very much like a reproach. Nothing shall induce me to do anything of the sort; but whatever be my reputation in that respect, I am content.

I have finished with private matters, but I have still some trifling remarks to offer on public affairs. If you, Aeschines, can name any human being, Greek or barbarian, on whom yonder sun shines, who has escaped all injury from the domination, first of Philip, and today of Alexander, so be it: I grant you that my fortune— or my misfortune, if you prefer the word—has been the cause of the whole trouble.

But if many people, who have never set eyes on me or heard the sound of my voice, have been grievously afflicted—I do not mean as individuals, but whole cities and nations—I say it is vastly more honest and candid to attribute these calamities to the common fortune of mankind, or to some distressing and untoward current of events.

Yet you dismiss those causes, and put the blame upon me, who only took part in politics by the side of my fellow-citizens here, although you must be conscious that a part, if not the whole, of your invective is addressed to all of them, and particularly to yourself. If I had held sole and despotic authority when I offered my counsels, it would have been open to you other orators to incriminate me:

but inasmuch as you were present at every assembly, as the state proposed a discussion of policy in which every one might join, and as my measures were approved at the time by every one, and especially by you,—for it was in no friendly spirit that you allowed me to enjoy all the hopes and enthusiasm and credit that were attached to my policy, but obviously because truth was too strong for you, and because you had nothing better to suggest—it is most iniquitous and outrageous to stigmatize today measures which at the time you were unable to amend.

Among other people I find this sort of distinction universally observed.—A man has sinned willfully: he is visited with resentment and punishment. He has erred unintentionally: pardon takes the place of punishment. Suppose that he has committed no sin or error at all, but, having devoted himself to a project approved by all, has, in common with all, failed of success. In that case he does not deserve reproach or obloquy, but condolence.

This distinction will be found not only embodied in our statutes, but laid down by nature herself in her unwritten laws and in the moral sense of the human race. Now Aeschines so far surpasses all mankind in savagery and malignity that he turns even misadventures, which he has himself cited as such, into crimes for which I am to be denounced.

To crown all—as though all his own speeches had been made in a disinterested and patriotic spirit—he bids you be on your guard against me, for fear I should mislead and deceive you, calling me an artful speaker, a mountebank, an impostor, and so forth. He seems to think that if a man can only get in the first blow with epithets that are really applicable to himself, they must be true, and the audience will make no reflections on the character of the speaker.

But I am sure you all know him well, and will regard those epithets as more appropriate to him than to me. I am also sure that my artfulness—well, be it so; although I notice that in general an audience controls the ability of a speaker, and that his reputation for wisdom depends upon your acceptance and your discriminating favor. Be that as it may, if I do possess any skill in speaking, you will all find that that skill has always been exercised on public concerns and for your advantage, never on private occasions and to your detriment. On the other hand the ability of Aeschines is applied not only to speaking on behalf of your enemies, but to the detriment of anyone who has annoyed or quarrelled with him. He never uses it honestly or in the interests of the commonweal.

No upright and honor able citizen must ever expect a jury impanelled in the public service to bolster up his own resentment or enmity or other passions, nor will he go to law to gratify them. If possible he will exclude them from his heart: if he cannot escape them, he will at least cherish them calmly and soberly. In what circumstances, then, ought a politician or an orator to be vehement? When all our national interests are imperilled; when the issue lies between the people and their adversaries. Then such is the part of a chivalrous and patriotic citizen.

But for a man who never once sought to bring me to justice for any public, nor, I will add, for any private offence, whether for the city’s sake or for his own, to come into court armed with a denunciation of a crown and of a vote of thanks, and to lavish such a wealth of eloquence on that plea, is a symptom of a peevish, jealous, small-minded, good-for-nothing disposition. And the exhibition of his turpitude is complete when he relinquishes his controversy with me, and directs the whole of his attack upon the defendant.

It really makes me think, Aeschines, that you deliberately went to law, not to get satisfaction for any transgression, but to make a display of your oratory and your vocal powers. But it is not the diction of an orator, Aeschines, or the vigor of his voice that has any value: it is supporting the policy of the people, and having the same friends and the same enemies as your country.