On the False Embassy

For assuredly, men of Athens, when all of you and the whole nation passed censure upon all the results of the peace, when you refused participation in the doings of the Amphictyonic Council, when your attitude towards Philip is still one of anger and suspicion, marking the whole of his conduct as sacrilegious and shameful, as well as unjust and injurious to yourselves,—it would be discreditable that you, who have entered this court to adjudicate at the scrutiny of those transactions, and have taken the judicial oath on behalf of the commonwealth, that you, I say, when the author of these wrongs has been placed in your power, caught red-handed after perpetrating such crimes, should return a verdict of acquittal.

Is there a man among your fellow-citizens, nay, in all Greece, who will not justly upbraid you if he sees you venting your wrath upon Philip, whose offence admits of much excuse—for he was making peace after war, and buying his ways and means from willing sellers—and acquitting this man, who made infamous traffic of your interests, in defiance of laws that visit such offences with the severest retribution?