On the Crown

Thus my considered policy was not only successful in delivering the Chersonese and Byzantium, in preventing the subjugation of the Hellespont to Philip, and in bringing distinction to the city, but it exhibited to mankind the noble spirit of Athens and the depravity of Philip. For he, the ally of the Byzantines, was besieging them in the sight of all men: could anything be more discreditable and outrageous?

But you, who might with justice have found fault with them for earlier acts of trespass, so far from being vindictive and deserting them in their distress, appeared as their deliverers, and by that conduct won renown,—the goodwill of the whole world. Moreover all know that you have awarded crowns to many politicians; but no one can name any man—I mean any statesman or orator—except me, by whose exertions the city itself has been crowned.

I wish to show you that the attack Aeschines made on the Euboeans and the Byzantines by raking up old stories of their disobliging conduct towards you, was mere spiteful calumny,—not only because, as I think you all must know, those stories are false, but because, even if they were entirely true, the merits of my policy are not affected,—by relating, with due brevity, two or three of the noble actions of your own commonwealth; for the public conduct of a state, like the private conduct of a man, should always be guided by its most honor able traditions.

When the Lacedaemonians, men of Athens, had the supremacy of land and sea, and were holding with governors and garrisons all the frontiers of Attica, Euboea, Tanagra, all Boeotia, Megara, Aegina, Ceos, and the other islands, for at that time Athens had no ships and no walls, you marched out to Haliartus,[*](Haliartus, 395 B.C.; Corinth, 394 B.C.; Decelean war, the last period, 4l3-404, of the Peloponnesian war, when the Spartans held the fortified position of Decelea in Attica.) and again a few days later to Corinth. The Athenians of those days had good reason to bear malice against the Corinthians and the Thebans for their conduct during the Decelean War; but they bore no malice whatever.