On the False Embassy

No more disgraceful speeches have ever been made in your hearing during the whole course of your history. Lives there a man, Greek or barbarian, so boorish, so unversed in history, or so ill-disposed to our commonwealth that, if he were asked the question, Tell me, in all the country that we call Greece and inhabit today, is there an acre that would still bear that name, or remain the home of the Greeks who now possess it, if the heroes of Marathon and Salamis, our forefathers, had not in their defence performed those glorious deeds of valor, is there one man who would not make reply: No; the whole country would have become the prey of the barbarian invaders?

Even among your foes there is not a man who would despoil those heroes of their meed of praise and gratitude; and does an Aeschines forbid you, their own descendants, to commemorate their names—all for the sake of his miserable bribes? There are indeed rewards in which the dead have no part or lot; but the praise that waits on glorious achievements is the peculiar guerdon of those who have gloriously died—for then jealousy is no longer their adversary. Let the man who would rob the dead of their reward be stripped of his own honors: that retribution you will levy on him for your forefathers’ sake. By those speeches of yours, you reprobate, you made havoc of our policy, traducing and disparaging with your tongue the achievements of our forefathers.