Demosthenes, On The Crown, 330, Part 1

History’s Great Speeches

I begin, men of Athens, by praying to every god and goddess, that the same good will, which I have ever cherished toward the commonwealth and all of you, may be requited to me on the present trial. I pray likewise—and this specially concerns yourselves, your religion, and your honor—that the gods may put it in your minds, not to take counsel of my opponent touching the manner in which I am to be heard—that would indeed be cruel!—but of the laws and of your oath: wherein (besides the other obligations) it is prescribed that you shall hear both sides alike. This means, not only that you must pass no pre-condemnation, not only that you must extend your good will equally to both, but also that you must allow the parties to adopt such order and course of defense as they severally choose and prefer.

Many advantages hath Æschinces over me on this trial; and two especially, men of Athens. First, my risk in the contest is not the same. It is assuredly not the same for me to forfeit your regard, as for my adversary not to succeed in his indictment. To me—but I will say nothing untoward at the outset of my address. The prosecution, however, is play to him. My second disadvantage is, the natural disposition of mankind to take pleasure in hearing invective and accusation, and to be annoyed by those who praise themselves. To Æschines is assigned the part which gives pleasure; that which is (I may fairly say) offensive to all, is left for me. And if, to escape from this, I make no mention of what I have done, I shall appear to be without defense against his charges, without proof of my claims to honor; whereas, if I proceed to give an account of my conduct and measures, I shall be forced to speak frequently of myself. I will endeavor then to do so with all becoming modesty; what I am driven to do by the necessity of the case, will be fairly chargeable to my opponent, who has instituted such a prosecution.

I think, men of the jury, you will all agree that I, as well as Ctesiphon, am a party to this proceeding, and that it is a matter of no less concern to me. It is painful and grievous to be deprived of anything, especially by the act of one's enemy; but your good will and affection are the heaviest loss, precisely as they are the greatest prize to gain.

Had Æschines confined his charge to the subject of the prosecution, I too would have proceeded at once to my justification of the decree. But since he has wasted no fewer words in the discussion of other matters, in most of them calumniating me, I deem it both necessary and just, men of Athens, to begin by shortly adverting to these points, that none of you may be induced by extraneous arguments to shut your ears against my defense to the indictment.

To all his scandalous abuse of my private life, observe my plain and honest answer. If you know me to be such as he alleged—for I have lived nowhere else but among you—let not my voice be heard, however transcendent my statesmanship! Rise up this instant and condemn me! But if, in your opinion and judgment, I am far better and of better descent than my adversary; if (to speak without offense) I am not inferior, I or mine, to any respectable citizens; then give no credit to him for his other statements—it is plain they were all equally fictions—but to me let the same good will, which you have uniformly exhibited upon many former trials, be manifested now. With all your malice, Æschines, it was very simple to suppose that I should turn from the discussion of measures and policy to notice your scandal. I will do no such thing; I am not so crazed. Your lies and calumnies about my political life I will examine forthwith; for that loose ribaldry I shall have a word hereafter, if the jury desire to hear it.

The crimes whereof I am accused are many and grievous; for some of them the laws enact heavy—most severe penalties. The scheme of this present proceeding includes a combination of spiteful insolence, insult, railing, aspersion, and everything of the kind; while for the said charges and accusations, if they were true, the state has not the means of inflicting an adequate punishment, or anything like it. For it is not right to debar another of access to the people and privilege of speech; moreover, to do so by way of malice and insult—by heaven! is neither honest, nor constitutional, nor just. If the crimes which he saw me committing against the state were as heinous as he so tragically gave out, he ought to have enforced the penalties of the law against them at the time; if he saw me guilty of an impeachable offense, by impeaching and so bringing me to trial before you; if moving illegal decrees, by indicting me for them. For surely, if he can prosecute Ctesiphon on my account, he would not have forborne to indict me myself, had he thought he could convict me. In short, whatever else he saw me doing to your prejudice, whether mentioned or not mentioned in his catalogue of slander, there are laws for such things, and punishments, and trials, and judgments, with sharp and severe penalties; all of which he might have enforced against me; and had he done so—had he thus pursued the proper method with me, his charges would have been consistent with his conduct. But now he has declined the straight-forward and just course, avoided all proofs of guilt at the time, and after this long interval gets up, to play his part withal, a heap of accusation, ribaldry and scandal. Then he arraigns me, but prosecutes the defendant.

What, then, were the statements made by Æschines, through which everything was lost? That you should not be alarmed by Philip's having passed Thermopylæ—that all would be as you desired, if you kept quiet; and in two or three days yon would hear, he was their friend to whom he had come as an enemy, and that their enemy to whom he had come as a friend—it was not words that cemented attachments (such was his solemn phrase), but identity of interest; and it was the interest of all alike. Philip, the Phocians, and you, to be relieved from the harshness and insolence of the Thebans. His assertions were heard by some with pleasure, on account of the hatred which then subsisted against the Thebans. But what happened directly, almost immediately afterward? The wretched Phocians were destroyed, their cities demolished; you that kept quiet, and trusted to Æschines, were shortly bringing in your effects out of the country, while Æschines received gold: and yet more—while you got nothing but your enmity with the Thebans and Thessalians, Philip won their gratitude for what he had done.

When you had been deceived by Philip through the agency of these men, who sold themselves in the embassies, and reported not a word of truth to you—when the unhappy Phocians had been deceived and their cities destroyed—what followed? The despicable Thessalians and stupid Thebans looked on Philip as a friend, a benefactor, a savior; he was everything with them—not a syllable would they hear from any one to the contrary. You, tho regarding his acts with suspicion and anger, still observed the peace; for you could have done nothing alone. The rest of the Greeks, cheated and disappointed like yourselves, gladly observed the peace, tho they also had in a manner been attacked for a long time. For when Philip was marching about, subduing Illyrians and Triballians and some also of the Greeks, and gaining many considerable accessions of power, and certain citizens of the states (Æschines among them) took advantage of the peace to go there and be corrupted; all people then, against whom he was making such preparations, were attacked.

If they perceived it not, that is another question, no concern of mine. I was forever warning and protesting, both at Athens and wheresoever I was sent. But the states were diseased; one class in their politics and measures being venal and corrupt, while the multitude of private men either had no foresight, or were caught with the bait of present ease and idleness; and all were under some such influence, only they imagined each that the mischief would not approach themselves, but that by the peril of others they might secure their own safety when they chose. The result, I fancy, has been that the people, in return for their gross and unseasonable indolence, have lost their liberty; the statesmen, who imagined they were selling everything but themselves, discovered they had sold themselves first; for, instead of friends, as they were named during the period of bribery, they are now called parasites, and miscreants, and the like befitting names. Justly. For no man, O Athenians, spends money for the traitor's benefit, or, when he has got possession of his purchase, employs the traitor to advise him in future proceedings; else nothing could have been more fortunate than a traitor. But it is not so—it never could be—it is far otherwise! "When the aspirant for power has gained his object, he is master also of those that sold it; and then—then, I say, knowing their baseness, he loathes and mistrusts and spurns them.

Consider only—for, tho the time of the events is past, the time for understanding them is ever present to the wise; Lasthenes was called the friend of Philip for a while, until he betrayed Olynthus—Timolaus for a while, until he destroyed Thebes—Eudicus and Simus of Larissa for a while, until they brought Thessaly under Philip's power. Since then the world has become full of traitors, expelled and insulted, and suffering every possible calumny. How fared Aristratus in Sicyon? how Perilaus in Megara ? Are they not outcasts? Hence one may evidently see, it is the vigilant defender of his country, the strenuous opponent of such men who secures to you traitors and hirelings, Æschines, the opportunity of getting bribes: through the number of those that oppose your wishes, you are in safety and in pay; for had it depended on yourselves, you would have perished long ago.

Much more could I say about those transactions, yet methinks too much has been said already. The fault is my adversary's, for having spirited over me the dregs, I may say, of his own wickedness and iniquities, of which I was obliged to clear myself to those who are younger than the events. You, too, have probably been disgusted, who knew this man's venality before I spoke a word. He calls it friendship indeed; and said somewhere in his speech—"the man who reproaches me with the friendship of Alexander." I reproach you with friendship of Alexander! Whence gotten, or how merited? Neither Philip's friend nor Alexander's should I ever call you; I am not so mad—unless we are to call reapers and other hired laborers the friends of those that hire them. That, however, is not so—how could it be? It is nothing of the kind. Philip's hireling I called you once, and Alexander's I call you now. So do all these men. If you disbelieve me, ask them; or rather I will do it for you. Athenians! is Æschines, think ye the hireling, or the friend of Alexander! You hear what they say!

Philip started, men of Athens, with a great advantage. It happened that among the Greeks—not some, but all alike—there sprang up a crop of traitors and venal wretches, such as in the memory of man had never been before. These he got for his agents and supporters; the Greeks, already ill-disposed and unfriendly to each other, he brought into a still worse state, deceiving this people, making presents to that, corrupting others in every way; and he split them into many parties, when they had all one interest, to prevent his aggrandizement. While the Greeks were all in such a condition—in such ignorance of the gathering and growing mischief—you have to consider, men of Athens, what policy and measures it became the commonwealth to adopt, and of this to receive a reckoning from me; for the man who assumed that post in the administration was I.

But I return to the question—What should the commonwealth, Æschines, have done, when she saw Philip establishing an empire and dominion over Greece? Or what was your statesman to advise or move?—I, a statesman at Athens?—for this is most material—I who knew that from the earliest time until the day of my own mounting the platform, our country had ever striven for precedency and honor and renown, and expended more blood and treasure for the sake of glory and the general weal than the rest of the Greeks had expended on their several interests?—who saw that Philip himself, with whom we were contending, had, in the strife for power and empire had his eye cut out, his collarbone fractured, his hand and leg mutilated, and was ready and willing to sacrifice any part of his body that fortune chose to take, provided he could live with the remainder in honor and glory? Hardly will any one venture to say this—that it became a man bred at Pella, then an obscure and inconsiderable place, to possess such inborn magnanimity, as to aspire to the mastery of Greece and form the project in his mind, while you, who were Athenians, day after day in speeches and in dramas reminded of the virtue of your ancestors, should have been so naturally base, as of your own free will and accord to surrender to Philip the liberty of Greece. No man will say this!

The only course then that remained was a just resistance to all his attacks upon you. Such course you took from the beginning, properly and becomingly; and I assisted by motions and counsels during the period of my political life:—I acknowledge it. But what should I have done? Was it meet that any of the Greeks should rise up to prevent these proceedings, or not? If not—if Greece was to present the spectacle (as it is called) of a Mysian prey, while Athenians had life and being, then I have exceeded my duty in speaking on the subject—the commonwealth has exceeded her duty, which followed my counsels—I admit that every measure has been a misdeed, a blunder of mine. But if some one ought to have arisen to prevent these things, who but the Athenian people should it have been? Such then was the policy which I espoused. I saw him reducing all men to subjection, and I opposed him; I continued warning and exhorting you not to make these sacrifices to Philip.

When Philip therefore was driven out of Eubœa, with arms by you, with counsels and decrees— tho some persons there should burst!—by me, he sought some new position of attack upon Athens. Seeing that we use more foreign corn than any people, and wishing to command the passage of the corn-trade, he advanced to Thrace; the Byzantines being his allies, he first required them to join in the war against you, and when they refused, saying (truly enough) that they had not made alliance on such terms, he threw up intrenchments before the city, planted batteries, and laid siege to it. What course hereupon it became you to take, I will not ask again; it is manifest to all. But who was it that succored the Byzantines, and rescued them? who prevented the alienation of the Hellespont at that crisis? You, men of Athens. When I say you, I mean the commonwealth. But who advised, framed, executed the measures of state, devoted himself wholly and unreservedly to the public business?—I!—What benefits thence accrued to all, you need no further to be told: you have learned by experience. For the war which then sprang up, beside that it brought honor and renown, kept you in a cheaper and more plentiful supply of all the necessaries of life than does the present peace, which these worthies maintain to their country's prejudice in the hope of something to come. Perish such hope! Never may they share the blessings for which you men of honest wishes pray to the gods, or communicate their own principles to you!

Thus the saving of Chersonesus and Byzantium, the preventing Philip's conquest of the Hellespont, and the honors therefore bestowed on this country, were the effects of my policy and administration: and more than this—they proved to all mankind the generosity of Athens and the baseness of Philip. He, the ally and friend of the Byzantines, was before all eyes besieging them—what could be more shameful or outrageous?—You, who might justly on many grounds have reproached them for wrongs done you in former times, instead of bearing malice and abandoning the oppressed, appeared as their deliverers; conduct which procured you glory, good-will, honors from all men. That you have crowned many of your statesmen, every one knows; but through what other person (I mean what minister or orator), besides myself, the commonwealth has been crowned, no one can say.

Well then, men of Athens—when the Lacedæmonians had the empire of land and sea, and held the country round Attica by governors and garrisons, Eubœa, Tanagra, all Bœotia, Megara, Ægina, Cleonæ, the other islands; when our state possessed neither ships nor walls; you marched out to Haliartus, and again not many days after to Corinth; albeit the Athenians of that time had many causes of resentment against both Corinthians and Thebans for their acts in the Decelean war; but they showed no resentment, none. And yet neither of these steps took they, Æschines, for benefactors, nor were they blind to the danger; but they would not for such reasons abandon people who sought their protection; for the sake of renown and glory they willingly exposed themselves to peril; just and noble was their resolve! For to all mankind the end of life is death, tho one keep one's self shut up in a closet; but it becomes brave men to strive always for honor, with good hope before them, and to endure courageously whatever the Deity ordains.

Thus did your ancestors, thus the elder among yourselves. For, tho the Lacedæmonians were neither friends nor benefactors, but had done many grievous injuries to our state, yet when the Thebans, victorious at Leuctra, sought their destruction, you prevented it, not fearing the power and reputation then possessed by the Thebans, nor reckoning up the merits of those whom you were about to fight for. And so you demonstrated to all the Greeks, that, however any people may offend you, you reserve your anger against them for other occasions; but should their existence or liberty be imperiled, you will not resent your wrongs or bring them into account.

I must return to the next in date of my political acts; and here again consider what was most beneficial for the state. I saw, men of Athens, that your navy was decaying, and that, while the rich were getting off with small payments, citizens of moderate or small fortunes were losing their substance, and the state, by reason thereof, missing her opportunities of action. I, therefore, proposed a law, by which I compelled the one class (the rich) to perform their duty, and stopped the oppression of the poor; and—what was most useful to the country—I caused her preparations to be made in time. And being indicted for it, I appeared on the charge before you, and was acquitted; and the prosecutor did not get his portion of the votes. But what sums, think ye, the chief men of the boards, or those in the second and third degrees, offered me, first, not to propose that law, secondly, when I had recorded it, to drop it on the abatement-oath? Such sums, men of Athens, as I should be afraid to tell you. And no wonder they did so; for under the former laws they might divide the charge between sixteen, spending little or nothing themselves, and grinding down the needy citizens; whereas under my law every one had to pay a sum proportioned to his means, and there was a captain for two ships, where before there was a partner with fifteen others for one ship; for they were calling themselves not captains any longer, but partners. They would have given anything to get these regulations annulled, and not be obliged to perform their duties.

Why then, wretched man, do you play the pettifogger? Why manufacture arguments? Why don't you take hellebore for your malady? Are you not ashamed to bring on a cause for spite, and not for any offense?—to alter some laws, and to garble others, the whole of which should in justice be read to persons sworn to decide according to the laws? And you that act thus describe the qualities which belong to a friend of the people, as if you had ordered a statue according to contract, and received it without having what the contract required; or as if friends of the people were known by words, and not by acts and measures! And you bawl out, regardless of decency, a sort of cart-language, applicable to yourself and your race, not to me.

Again, men of Athens—I conceive abuse to differ from accusation in this, that accusation has to do with offenses for which the laws provide penalties, abuse with the scandal which enemies speak against each other according to their humor. And I believe your ancestors built these courts, not that we should assemble you here and bring forth the secrets of private life for mutual reproach, but to give us the means of convicting persons guilty of crimes against the state, Æschines knew this as well as I, and yet he chose to rail rather than to accuse.

Even in this way he must take as much as he gives; but before I enter upon such matters, let me ask him one question—Should one call you the state's enemy, or mine, Æschines? Mine, of course. Yet, where you might, for any offense which I committed, have obtained satisfaction for the people according to the laws, you neglected it—at the audit, on the indictments and other trials; but where I in my own person am safe on every account, by the laws, by time, by prescription, by many previous judgments on every point, by my never having been convicted of a public offense—and where the country must share, more or less, in the repute of measures which were her own—here it is you have encountered me. See if you are not the people's enemy, while you pretend to be mine!

I am at no loss for materials concerning you and your family, but am in doubt what to mention first—whether how your father Tromes, being servant to Elpias, who kept a reading-school in the temple of Theseus, wore a weight of fetters and a collar; or how your mother, by her morning spousals in the cottage by Hero Calamites, reared up you, the beautiful statue, the eminent third-rate actor!—But all know these things without my telling—Or how the galley-piper Phormio, the slave of Dion of Phrearrii, removed her from that honorable employment. But, by Jupiter and the gods! I fear, in saying what is proper about you, I may be thought to have chosen topics unbecoming to myself. All this therefore, I shall pass by, and commence with the acts of his own life; for indeed he came not of common parents, but of such as are execrated by the people. Very lately—lately do I say?—it is but yesterday that he has become both an Athenian and an orator—adding two syllables, he converted his father from Tromes to Atrometus, and dignified his mother by the name of Glaucothea, who (as every one knows) was called Empusa: having got that title (it is plain) from her doing and submitting to anything—how else could she have got it? However, you are so ungrateful and wicked by nature, that after being raised through the people from servitude to freedom, from beggary to affluence, instead of returning their kindness, you work against them as a hireling politician.

That he should cooperate openly with Philip before the war, was shocking—O heaven and earth! could it be otherwise?—against his country! Yet allow him if you please, allow him this. But when the ships had openly been made prize, Chersonesus was ravaged, the man was marching against Attica, matters were no longer doubtful, war had begun—nothing that he ever did for you can this malicious iambic-mouther show—not a resolution has Æschines, great or small, concerning the interests of the state. If he asserts it, let him prove it now while my waterglass is running. But there is none. He is reduced to an alternative:—either he had no fault to find with my measures, and therefore moved none against them; or he sought the good of the enemy, and therefore would not propose any better.

Did he abstain from speaking as well as moving, when any mischief was to be done to you? Why, no one else could speak a word. Other things, it appears, the country could endure, and he could accomplish without detection: but one last act he achieved, O Athenians, which crowned all he had done before; on which he lavished that multitude of words, recounting the decrees against the Amphissian Locrians, in hopes of distorting the truth. But the thing admits it not. No! never will you wash yourself clean from your performances there—talk as long as you will!

In your presence, men of Athens, I invoke all the gods and goddesses to whom the Attic territory belongs, and Pythian Apollo the Father-god of our state; and I implore them all! As I shall declare the truth to you, as I declared it in your assembly at the time, the very moment I saw this wretch putting his hand to the work—for I perceived, instantly perceived it—so may they grant me favor and protection! If from malice or personal rivalry I bring a false charge against my opponent, may they cut me off from every blessing!

But wherefore this imprecation, this solemn assurance? Because, tho I have documents lying in the public archives, from which I shall clearly prove my assertions, tho I know you remember the facts, I fear this man may be considered unequal to the mischiefs which he has wrought; as before happened, when he caused the destruction of the unhappy Phocians by his false reports to you.