On the False Embassy

Why? Because he was not cajoled and hoodwinked; he had sold himself, and pocketed the money, before he made his speech and betrayed us to Philip. To Philip he has been a trusty and well-beloved hireling; to you a treacherous ambassador and a treacherous citizen, worthy of threefold destruction.

That is not the only proof that he was paid for all that he said. The other day there came to you some Thessalians, and envoys of Philip with them, to ask you to vote for Philip’s admission to the Amphictyonic Council. Who ought to have been the very first to oppose them? Aeschines. Why ? Because Philip’s acts had falsified his report.

For he had told you that Philip would fortify Thespiae and Plataea, would not destroy the Phocians, and would put a stop to the aggressions of the Thebans; but Philip has made the Thebans dangerously strong, he has exterminated the Phocians, and, instead of fortifying Thespiae and Plataea, he has enslaved Orchomenus and Coronea as well. Could contradiction go further? Yet Aeschines offered no opposition; he never opened his lips or made a single objection.[*](Section numbering in the Loeb varies here. A milestone indicates where the Loeb section break occurs.)

That was bad—but not bad enough for him. He did what no other man in all Athens did—he spoke in support of the envoys. Even that miscreant Philocrates durst not go so far as that—only this man Aeschines. When you raised a clamor, and refused to hear him, he came down from the tribune, exclaiming, in order to cut a figure before Philip’s ambassadors—you cannot have forgotten it:—Plenty of shouters, but very few fighters, when it comes to fighting!—being himself, I suppose, such a marvellous fighter. O heavens!

Here is another point: if we were unable to prove that any one man among the ambassadors received anything, or if that were not as clear as daylight, we might have had recourse to torture[*](torture: to get evidence from slaves.) or the like. But when Philocrates not only confessed his gains repeatedly in the Assembly, but paraded them before your eyes, dealing in wheat, building houses, boasting that he would go abroad even if you did not appoint him, importing timber, changing his gold openly at the bankers,—he assuredly cannot deny that he has taken money, after that admission and that display.

Think then of a man, who had it in his power to be counted among the innocent, choosing to fall out with them and to be accused as an adherent of Philocrates, merely to let Philocrates make money, while he accepts only the discredit and the peril! Could any human being be so senseless, or so unlucky? No, indeed. You will find here, men of Athens, if you will only look at it in the right way, a strong and sufficient proof that Aeschines did take bribes.

Now look at a recent, but most convincing, proof that he sold himself to Philip. You know, I am sure, that, not long ago, when Hypereides impeached Philocrates, I rose and said that I was dissatisfied with the impeachment in one respect: it implied that all these grave misdemeanors had been committed by Philocrates alone, and not by any of the other nine ambassadors. That, I remarked, was impossible; for by himself Philocrates would have counted for nothing, if he had none of his colleagues to act with him.

I do not wish, I said, either to acquit or to accuse any man; I want the guilt to be detected and the innocent cleared by plain fact. Therefore let any man who chooses stand up and come forward, and declare that he had no part in Philocrates’ doings, and does not approve them. Every man who does this, I added, I acquit. No doubt you remember the incident. Well, no one came forward or presented himself.

The rest had various excuses: one was not legally accountable; another was not present; a third had a brother-in-law in Macedonia. Aeschines had no such excuse. The truth is, he has sold himself once for all. Not only has he taken hire for past actions, but it is evident that, if he escapes now, he will henceforward, as against you, be Philip’s man; and so, for fear of uttering a single word injurious to Philip, even when you acquit him he does not accept acquittal. He prefers disrepute, prosecution, any punishment this court may inflict rather than to do anything disagreeable to Philip.

But why this fellow-feeling? Why this concern for Philocrates? Though all his acts on embassy had been consistent with honor and sound policy, if Philocrates admitted, as he did admit, that he had taken bribes, an incorruptible ambassador would have taken infinite pains to avoid and disavow all association with him. Aeschines has not done so. Is not that a plain argument, men of Athens? Does it not proclaim aloud that he has taken bribes, and that from first to last he went wrong for money’s sake,—not through stupidity, or ignorance, or blundering?

What witness, he will ask, testifies that I have taken bribes? A brilliant argument! Facts, Aeschines, the most credible of all witnesses. You cannot find fault with facts, and say that they are what they are in deference to somebody, or to oblige somebody. They are what your treachery and perversion have made them, and such they appear on examination. But I have another witness besides the facts. You shall this very moment give evidence against yourself. Come here: stand up and answer me!—Nothing to say? You cannot plead inexperience. You, who take up a new prosecution as easily as you study a new play, and convict your man without witnesses and under a time-limit, you must be an uncommonly clever speaker, when, owing to congestion in the law courts, the time allotted to each speaker was cut down to a minimum. But the matter is obscure.)

Among the many flagrant misdeeds committed by Aeschines, the singular baseness of which I think you all appreciate, there is none more flagrant, in my judgement, than the action I am about to relate, none that will more palpably prove him to have taken bribes and sold everything. When for the third time you sent your ambassadors to Philip, for the fulfilment of those magnificent expectations which Aeschines had guaranteed, you reappointed most of the former envoys, including Aeschines and me.

I immediately declined the appointment on affidavit,[*](A citizen appointed to any office could decline it, if he took an oath before the Assembly that for reasons of health, etc., he was unable to serve.) and when certain persons were clamorous and insisted that I should go, I declared that I would not leave Athens; but the nomination of Aeschines was still valid. After the dispersal of the Assembly, the envoys met and discussed which of them should be left behind,[*](To watch and counteract Demosthenes.) for the whole business was still in the clouds, and the future uncertain, and all sorts of conferences and discussions were going on in the market-place.

They were afraid that an extraordinary meeting of the Assembly might suddenly be convened, and that then, on hearing the truth from me, you might adopt some acceptable resolution in favor of the Phocians, and that so Philip might lose control. One friendly resolution, one gleam of hope, and the Phocians might have been saved. If you had not fallen into the trap, it was impossible—yes, impossible—for Philip to remain at Thermopylae. There was no corn in the country, as the war had prevented sowing; and the conveyance of corn was impossible so long as your fleet was there and commanded the sea. The Phocian cities were numerous, and not easy of capture, unless by protracted siege. Even if Philip had taken a city a day, there were twenty-two of them.

For all these reasons they left Aeschines at home, fearing that you might be undeceived and change your policy. Now to decline an appointment on affidavit with no reason alleged was a strange move and very suspicious. What do you mean? Are you declining the embassy? Are you not going to Macedonia to realize all those grand benefits which you announced yourself? However, he had to remain. What was to be done? He pleaded ill-health; and his brother, taking Execestus the physician with him, repaired to the council-house, made affidavit of the illness, and received the appointment himself.

But afterwards, when within five or six days the Phocians were destroyed, when Aeschines’ wages stopped as such things do, when Dercylus had returned from Chalcis and had informed you, at the assembly held at Peiraeus, of the destruction of the Phocians, when that news filled you with indignation on their account and alarm on your own, when you were resolving to bring in your women and children from the country, to reinstate the frontier fortresses, to fortify the Peiraeus, and to hold the festival of Heracles within the walls,—

then at last, at that crisis, when the city was encompassed with confusion and terror, off marched this wise, clever, smooth-tongued gentleman, without waiting for Council or Assembly to reappoint him, on his embassy to the court of the chief malefactor. He forgot that he had sworn that he was too ill to travel; forgot that another ambassador had been chosen in his stead, and that the law visits such conduct with death;

forgot that, with the Thebans not only holding all Boeotia but in possession of the territory of Phocis, it was a very odd thing for a man, who had solemnly announced that the Thebans had set a price upon his head, to walk straight into the middle of Thebes and the Theban encampment. Nevertheless, he was so excited, his appetite for moneymaking and bribe-taking was so keen, that he put aside and ignored all these obstacles, and off he went.