On the False Embassy

It was Aeschines who was Philip’s spokesman and gave undertakings. Then Philocrates, taking advantage of your ready acceptance of Aeschines’ words, inserts in the decree a clause providing that, if the Phocians should not do what was right and give up the temple to the Amphictyonic Council, the Athenian people should send a force to coerce the recalcitrants.

And so, men of Athens, as you stayed at home instead of taking the field, as the Lacedaemonians had discerned Philip’s treachery and withdrawn, and as no members of the Council were on the spot except the Thessalians and the Thebans, he really has proposed, with the utmost civility, to hand the temple over to them. The wording is, to the Amphictyons; but what Amphictyons? There were none there except Thessalians and Thebans. He makes no such proposal as that the Amphictyonic Council should be convened, or that operations should be suspended until it meets, or that Proxenus should march against the Phocians, or that the Athenians should take the field.