On the False Embassy

He illustrated his remarks by representing to the jury the attitude of the statue; but his mimicry did not include what, politically, would have been much more profitable than an attitude,—a view of Solon’s spirit and purpose, so widely different from his own. When Salamis had revolted, and the Athenian people had forbidden under penalty of death any proposal for its recovery, Solon, accepting the risk of death, composed and recited an elegiac poem, and so retrieved that country for Athens and removed a standing dishonor.

Aeschines, on the other hand, gave away and sold Amphipolis, a city which the King of Persia and all Greece recognized as yours, speaking in support of the resolution moved by Philocrates. It was highly becoming in him, was it not to remind us of Solon? Not content with this performance at home, he went to Macedonia, and never mentioned the place with which his mission was concerned. So he stated in his own report, for no doubt you remember how he said I, too, had something to say about Amphipolis, but I left it out to give Demosthenes a chance of dealing with that subject.