HKB
into straight; The ways of Pride grow gentle, The ways of Strife and Hate; Then baleful Faction ceases, Then Health prevails alway, And Wisdom still increases, Beneath Law's wholesome sway.
{256} You hear, men of Athens, how Solon speaks of men like these, and of the gods, who, he says, preserve the city. It is my belief and my hope that this saying of his, that the gods preserve our city, is true at all times; but I believe that all that has happened in connexion with the present examination is, in a sense, a special proof of the goodwill of some unseen power towards the city. {257} Consider what has happened. A man who as ambassador did a work of great wickedness, and has surrendered countries in which the gods should have been worshipped by yourselves and your allies, has disfranchised one who accepted the challenge[n] to prosecute him. To what end? To the end that he himself might meet with no pity or mercy for his own iniquities. Nay, more; while prosecuting his victim he deliberately set himself to speak evil of me; and again, before the People, he threatened to enter an indictment against me, and said more to the same effect. And to what end? To the end that I, who had the most perfect knowledge of all his acts of villany, and had followed them closely throughout, might have your full indulgence in prosecuting him. {258} Aye, and through postponing his appearance before you continually up to the present moment, he has been insensibly brought to a time when, on account of what is coming upon us, if for no other reason, it is neither possible nor safe for you to allow him (after his corruption) to escape unscathed. For though, men of Athens, you ought always to execrate and to punish those who are traitors and corrupt, to do so at this time would be more than ever seasonable, and would confer a benefit upon all mankind in common. {259} For a disease, men of Athens, an awful disease has fallen upon Hellas--a disease hard to cope with, and requiring abundant good fortune, and abundant carefulness on your own part. For the most notable men in their several cities, the men who claim[n] to lead in public affairs, are betraying their own liberty--unhappy men!--and bringing upon themselves a self-chosen servitude, under the milder names of friendship and companionship with Philip, and other such phrases; while the other citizens, and the sovereign bodies in each city, however composed, whose duty it was to punish these men and slay them out of hand, are so far from taking any such action, that they admire and envy them, and every one would be glad to be in the same case. {260} Yet it is from this very cause--it is through entertaining ambitions like these--that the Thessalians, who up to yesterday or the day before had lost thereby only their paramount position[n] and their dignity as a state, are now already being stripped of their very liberty; for there are Macedonian garrisons in some of their citadels. This same disease it is which has invaded the Peloponnese and brought about the massacres in Elis, infecting the unhappy people of that country with such insanity and frenzy, that in order to be lords over one another and to gratify Philip, they murder their kinsmen and fellow citizens. {261} Not even here has the disease been stayed: it has penetrated Arcadia and turned it upside-down; and now many of the Arcadians, who should be no less proud of liberty than yourselves--for you and they alone are indigenous peoples--are declaring their admiration for Philip, erecting his image in bronze, and crowning him; and, to complete the tale, they have passed a resolution that, if he comes to the Peloponnese, they will receive him within their walls. {262} The Argives have acted in exactly the same way. These events, I say it in all solemnity and earnestness, call for no small precautions: for this plague, men of Athens, that is spreading all around us, has now found its way to Athens itself. While then we are still safe, ward it off, and take away the citizenship of those who first introduced it. Beware lest otherwise you realize the worth of the advice given you this day, only when there is no longer anything that you can do. {263} Do you not perceive, men of Athens, how vivid and plain an example has been afforded you by the unhappy Olynthians? The destruction of those wretched men was due to nothing so much as to conduct like that of which I speak. You can test this clearly if you review their history. {264} For at a time when they possessed only 400 cavalry, and numbered not more than 5,000 men in all, since the Chalcidians were not yet all united under one government, the Spartans came against them with a large force, including both army and fleet (for you doubtless remember that at that period the Spartans were virtually masters both of land and sea); and yet, though this great force came against them, the Olynthians lost neither the city nor any single fortress, but won many battles, killed three of the enemy's commanders, and finally concluded the war on their own terms.[n] {265} But when some of them began to take bribes, and the people as a whole were foolish enough, or rather unfortunate enough, to repose greater confidence in these men than in those who spoke for their own good; when Lasthenes roofed his house with the timber which came from Macedonia, and Euthycrates was keeping a large herd of cattle for which he had paid no one anything; when a third returned with sheep, and a fourth with horses, while the people, to whose detriment all this was being done, so far from showing any anger or any disposition to chastise men who acted so, actually gazed on them with envy, and paid them honour and regarded them as heroes--{266} when, I say, such practices were gaining ground in this way, and corruption had been victorious; then, though they possessed 1,000 cavalry and numbered more than 10,000 men; though all the surrounding peoples were their allies; though you went to their assistance with 10,000 mercenaries and 50 ships, and with 4,000 citizen-soldiers as well, none of these things could save them. Before a year of the war had expired they had lost all the cities in Chalcidice, while Philip could no longer keep pace with the invitations of the traitors, and did not know which place to occupy first. {267} Five hundred horsemen were betrayed by their own commanders and captured by Philip, with their arms--a larger number than were ever before captured by any one. And the men who acted thus were not ashamed to face the sun or the earth--the soil of their native land--on which they stood, or the temples, or the sepulchres of the dead, or the disgrace which was bound to follow upon such deeds afterwards. Such is the madness and distraction which corruption engenders. So it is for you--for you, the People--to be wise, to refuse to suffer such things, and to visit them with public chastisement. For it would be monstrous indeed, if, after the terrible condemnation which you passed upon those who betrayed the Olynthians, it were seen that you allowed the criminals who are in your very midst to go unpunished. (To the clerk.) Read the decree passed with reference to the Olynthians.