HKB
from a country that one could acknowledge with credit;--he is a pestilent Macedonian, from whose country it used not to be possible to buy even a slave of any value.
{32} And in spite of this, is there any degree of insolence to which he does not proceed? Not content with annihilating cities, does he not manage the Pythian games,[n] the common meeting of the Hellenes, and send his slaves to preside over the competition in his absence? [Is he not master of Thermopylae, and of the passes which lead into Hellenic territory? Does he not hold that district with garrisons and mercenaries? Has he not taken the precedence in consulting the oracle, and thrust aside ourselves and the Thessalians and Dorians and the rest of the Amphictyons, though the right is not one which is given even to all of the Hellenes?] {33} Does he not write to the Thessalians to prescribe the constitution under which they are to live? Does he not send one body of mercenaries to Porthmus, to expel the popular party of Eretria, and another to Oreus, to set up Philistides as tyrant? And yet the Hellenes see these things and endure them, gazing (it seems to me) as they would gaze at a hailstorm--each people praying that it may not come their way, but no one trying to prevent it. Nor is it only his outrages upon Hellas that go unresisted. {34} No one resists even the aggressions which are committed against himself. Ambracia and Leucas belong to the Corinthians--he has attacked them: Naupactus to the Achaeans--he has sworn to hand it over to the Aetolians: Echinus[n] to the Thebans--he has taken it from them, and is now marching against their allies the Byzantines--is it not so? {35} And of our own possessions, to pass by all the rest, is not Cardia, the greatest city in the Chersonese, in his hands? Thus are we treated; and we are all hesitating and torpid, with our eyes upon our neighbours, distrusting one another, rather than the man whose victims we all are. But if he treats us collectively in this outrageous fashion, what do you think he will do, when he has become master of each of us separately?