On the Crown

Your policy of bearing succor to the Greeks did not originate in my statesmanship and my principles. If you were to acknowledge that my influence caused you to resist a despotism that threatened the ruin of Greece, you would bestow on me a favor greater than all the gifts you have ever conferred on anyone. I do not claim that favor; I cannot claim it without injustice to you: and I am certain that you will not grant it. If Aeschines had acted an honest part, he would never have indulged his spite against me by impairing and defaming the noblest of your national glories.

But why reproach him for that imputation, when he has uttered calumnies of far greater audacity? A m an who accuses me of Philippism— Heaven and Earth, of what lie is he not capable? I solemnly aver that, if we are to cast aside lying imputations and spiteful mendacity, and inquire in all sincerity who really are the men to whom the reproach of all that has befallen might by general consent be fairly and honestly brought home, you will find that they are men in the several cities who resemble Aeschines, and do not resemble me.

At a time when Philip’s resources were feeble and very small indeed, when we were constantly warning, exhorting, admonishing them for the best, these men flung away their national prosperity for private and selfish gain; they cajoled and corrupted all the citizens within their grasp, until they had reduced them to slavery. So the Thessalians were treated by Daochus, Cineas, Thrasydaus, the Arcadians by Cercidas, Hieronymus, Eucampidas, the Argives by Myrtis, Teledamus, Mnaseas, the Eleians by Euxitheus, Cleotimus, Aristaechmus, the Messenians by the sons of that god-forsaken Philiades, Neon and Thrasylochus, the Sicyonians by Aristratus and Epichares, the Corinthians by Deinarchus and Demaretus, the Megarians by Ptoeodorus, Helixus, Perilaus, the Thebans by Timolaus, Theogeiton, Anemoetas, the Euboeans by Hipparchus, Cleitarchus, and Sosistratus.

I could continue this catalogue of traitors till the sun sets. Every one of them, men of Athens, is a man of the same way of thinking in the politics of his own country as Aeschines and his friends are in ours. They too are profligates, sycophants, fiends incarnate; they have mutilated their own countries; they have pledged away their liberty in their cups, first to Philip, and now to Alexander. They measure their happiness by their belly and their baser parts; they have overthrown for ever that freedom and independence which to the Greeks of an earlier age were the very standard and canon of prosperity.