Against Leptines

You will grasp the situation best if you will reason it out for yourselves in this way. Suppose at the present day a party of those in power at Pydna or Potidaea or any of those other places which are subject to Philip and hostile to you—

just as Thasos and Byzantium then were friendly to the Lacedaemonians and estranged from you—promised to hand them over to you in return for the same rewards that you gave to Ecphantus of Thasos and Archebius of Byzantium; and suppose some of these gentlemen here objected to their proposal on the ground that it would be monstrous if a select few of the resident aliens were to escape the public services; how would you deal with their arguments? Is it not certain that you would refuse to listen to such malignant pettifoggers? If so, then it is disgraceful that you should consider such an objection malignant when you are going to receive a benefit, but should lend an ear to it when it is proposed to revoke your gifts to former benefactors. Now let us pass to another argument.

The men who betrayed Pydna and the other places to Philip—what prompted them to injure us? Is it not obvious to everyone that it was the reward which they calculated on receiving from Philip for their services? Which, then, ought you to have chosen to do, Leptines? To induce our enemies, if you can, to give up honoring those who become their benefactors on the strength of injuries done to us, or to impose a law on us which takes away some part of the rewards which our own benefactors are enjoying? I fancy the former. But that I may not wander from the present point, take and read the decrees passed in honor of the Thasians and the Byzantines.

[The decrees are read]

You have heard the decrees, gentlemen of the jury. Perhaps some of the men named are no longer alive. But their deeds survive, since they were done once for all. It is fitting, therefore, to allow these inscriptions to hold good for all time, that as long as any of the men are alive, they may suffer no wrong at your hands, and when they die, those inscriptions may be a memorial of our national character, and may stand as proofs to all who wish to do us service, declaring how many benefactors our city has benefited in return.

Nor indeed would I have you forget this, men of Athens, that it is a most disgraceful thing to show and proclaim to all mankind that the misfortunes which these men endured for your sake have been confirmed to them for ever, while the grants which they received from you in recompense have been even now rescinded.

For it would have been far more fitting to mitigate their distress by letting them keep your gifts, than, while the distress remains, to rob them of your bounty. In Heaven’s name, I ask you, who is there that will choose to do you service with the prospect of instant punishment by your enemies, if he fails, and of a dubious gratitude from you, if he succeeds?

Now I should be greatly vexed, gentlemen of the jury, if I thought that the only real charge I was bringing against the law was its depriving many of our alien benefactors of the immunity, but should seem unable to point to any deserving recipient of the honor among our own fellow-countrymen. For my prayer would ever be that Athens may abound in all blessings, but especially that the best men and the most numerous benefactors of this city may be her own citizens.

First of all, then, in the case of Conon, ask yourselves whether dissatisfaction with the man or his performances justifies the cancelling of the gifts conferred on him. For, as some of you who are his contemporaries can attest, it was just after the return of the exiled democrats from the Piraeus,[*](Under Thrasybulus in 403.) when our city was so weak that she had not a single ship, and Conon, who was a general in the Persian service and received no prompting whatever from you, defeated the Lacedaemonians at sea and taught the former dictators of Greece to show you deference; he cleared the islands of their military governors, and coming here he restored our Long Walls[*](Conon obtained the support of Persia for Athens against Sparta and was appointed joint commander, with the satrap Pharnabazus, of the Persian fleet. In 394 he destroyed the Spartan fleet off Cnidus, sailed about the Aegean expelling the Spartan harmosts from many of the islands, and finally reached Athens, where he restored the Long Wall, dismantled since the Peloponnesian war.); and he was the first to make the hegemony of Greece once more the subject of dispute between Athens and Sparta.

For, indeed, he has the unique distinction of being thus mentioned in his inscription; Whereas Conon, it runs, freed the allies of Athens. That inscription, gentlemen of the jury, is his glory in your estimation, but it is yours in the estimation of all Greece. For whatever boon any one of us confers on the other states, the credit of it is reaped by the fame of our city.

Therefore his contemporaries not only granted him immunity, but also set up his statue in bronze—the first man so honored since Harmodius and Aristogiton. For they felt that he too, in breaking up the empire of the Lacedaemonians, had ended no insignificant tyranny. In order, then, that you may give a closer attention to my words, the clerk shall read the actual decrees which you then passed in favor of Conon. Read them.

[The decrees are read]

It was not, then, only by you, Athenians, that Conon was honored for the services that I have described, but by many others, who rightly felt bound to show gratitude for the benefits they had received. And so it is to your dishonor, men of Athens, that in other states his rewards hold good, but of your rewards alone he is to lose this part.

Neither is this creditable—to honor him when living, with all the distinctions that have been recited to you, but when he is dead to take back some part of your former gifts. For many of his achievements, men of Athens, deserve praise, and all of them make it improper to revoke the gifts they earned for him, but the noblest deed of all was his restoration of the Long Walls.

You will realize this if you compare the way in which Themistocles, the most famous man of his age, accomplished the same result. Now history tells us that Themistocles bade his countrymen get on with the building and detain anyone who came from Sparta, while he went off himself on an embassy to the Lacedaemonians; and while negotiations went on there and the news kept coming that the Athenians were fortifying, he denied it and told them to send envoys to see for themselves, and when these envoys did not return, he urged them to send more. Indeed, I expect you have all heard the story of how he hoodwinked them.

Now I assert—and I earnestly appeal to you, Athenians, not to take offence at what is coming, but to consider whether it is true—I assert that in proportion as openness is better than secrecy, and it is more honorable to gain one’s end by victory than by trickery, so Conon deserves more credit than Themistocles for building the walls. For the latter achieved it by evading those who would have prevented it, but the former by beating them in battle. Therefore it is not right that so great a man should be wronged by you, or should gain less than those orators who will try to prove that you ought to deduct something from what was bestowed on him.

Very well. But, they will say, we may let the son of Chabrias be robbed of the immunity which his father justly received from you and bequeathed to him. But I am sure there is not a single right-minded man who would approve of that. Now, perhaps you know, even without any words from me, that Chabrias was a man of high character; yet there is no harm if I too recall briefly his achievements.

How skilfully, as your commander, he drew up your ranks at Thebes[*](When Athens helped Thebes to repel the invasion of Agesilaus in 378. Chabrias, on his way to Cyprus in 388 to help Evagoras against Persia, landed on Aegina and killed the Spartan harmost there. He was operating in Egypt in 380 and again in 361.) to face the whole power of the Peloponnese, how he slew Gorgopas in Aegina, what trophies he set up in Cyprus and afterwards in Egypt, how he visited, I might almost say, every land, yet nowhere disgraced our city’s name or his own—of all these exploits it is by no means easy to speak adequately, and it would be a great shame if my words should make them fall below the estimate of him which each one of you has formed in his own mind. But of some, which I think I could never belittle in describing them, I will try to remind you.

Now, he beat the Lacedaemonians in a sea-fight[*](Off Naxos in 376.) and took forty-nine warships; he captured most of the islands near and handed them over to you, turning their previous enmity into friendship; he brought to Athens three thousand captives, and paid into the treasury more than a hundred and ten talents taken from the enemy. And in all these facts some of the oldest among you can bear me out. But in addition, he captured more than twenty warships, one or two at a time, and brought them all into your harbors.

To sum up; he alone of all our generals never lost a city, a fort, a ship, or a man, as long as he led you; and none of your enemies can boast a single trophy won from you and him, while you possess many won from many enemies while he was your general. But for fear lest my speech should omit any of his exploits, the clerk shall read to you an inventory of all the ships he took and where he took each, the number of cities and the amount of treasure captured, and the place where he set up each trophy. Read.

[The exploits of Chabrias are read]

Does it seem to any of you, gentlemen of the jury, that this man, who captured so many cities and ships from your enemies by his victories on sea, and who was the source of so much honor, but never of disgrace, to your city, deserves to be deprived of the immunity which he obtained at your hands and bequeathed to his son? I cannot believe it, for it is out of all reason. Had he lost a single city or as few as ten ships, Leptines and his supporters would have impeached him for high treason, and if he had been convicted, he would have been a ruined man for ever.

But since, on the contrary, he took seventeen cities, and captured seventy ships and three thousand prisoners, and paid into the treasury a hundred and ten talents, and set up so many trophies, in that case shall not his rewards for these services stand good? Moreover, Athenians, it will be seen that Chabrias during his lifetime did everything in your behalf, and that he met death itself in no other service; so that for this, as well as for all that he did in his life, you ought to show yourselves generously disposed to his son.