would be necessary, if an expedition were sent to his aid, was also
unattractive. Demosthenes, however, proposed that Diopeithes should be
vigorously supported, on the ground that Philip was really at war with
Athens, and that this was not the time to interfere with the general who
alone was pushing the Athenian cause. The speech was delivered early in
the spring of 341. It is a masterpiece of oratory, at once statesmanlike
and impassioned, and shows a complete command of every variety of tone.
The latter part of it contains a strong denunciation of the Macedonian
party in Athens, a defence of the orator's own career, and an urgent
demand for the punishment of disloyalty. At the same time Demosthenes does
not embody the policy which he advises in any formal motion. For this we
have to wait for the Third Philippic.]


{1} It was the duty, men of Athens, of every speaker not to allow either
malice or favour to influence any speech which he might make, but simply
to declare the policy which he considered to be the best, particularly
when your deliberations were concerned with public affairs of great
importance. But since there are some who are led on to address you, partly
out of contentiousness, partly from causes which I need not discuss, it is
for you, men of Athens--you, the People--to dismiss all other
considerations, and both in the votes that you give and in the measures
that you take to attend solely to what you believe to be for the good of
the city. {2} Now our present anxiety arises out of affairs in the
Chersonese, and the campaign, now in its eleventh month, which Philip is
conducting in Thrace. But most of the speeches which we have heard have
been about the acts and intentions of Diopeithes. For my part, I conceive
that all charges made against any one who is amenable to the laws and can
be punished by you when you will are matters which you are free to
investigate, either immediately or after an interval, as you think fit;
and there is no occasion for me or any one else to use strong language
about them. {3} But all those advantages which an actual enemy of the
city, with a large force in the Hellespont, is trying to snatch from you,
and which, if we once fall behind-hand, we shall no longer be able to
recover--these, surely, are matters upon which our interest demands that
our plans be formed and our preparations made with the utmost dispatch;
and that no clamour, no accusations about other matters, be allowed to
drive us from this point.

{4} Often as I am surprised at the assertions which are habitually made in
your presence, nothing, men of Athens, has surprised me more than the
remark which I heard only lately in the Council--that one who advises you
ought, forsooth, to advise you plainly either to go to war or to keep the
peace. {5} Very good. If Philip is remaining inactive, if he is keeping
nothing that is ours, in violation of the Peace, if he is not organizing
all mankind against us, there is nothing more to be said--we have simply
to observe the Peace; and I see that, for your part, you are quite ready
to do so. But what if the oath that we swore, and the terms upon which we
made the Peace, stand inscribed for our eyes to see? {6} What if it is
proved that from the outset, before Diopeithes sailed from Athens with the
settlers who are now accused of having brought about the war, Philip
wrongfully seized many of our possessions--and here, unrepealed, are your
resolutions charging him with this--and that all along he has been
uninterruptedly seizing the possessions of the other Hellenic and foreign
peoples, and uniting their resources against us? What is _then_ the
meaning of the statement that we ought either to go to war or to keep the
Peace? {7} For we have no choice in the matter: nothing remains open to us
but the most righteous and most necessary of all acts--the act that they
deliberately refuse to consider--I mean the act of retaliation against the
aggressor: unless indeed, they intend to argue that, so long as Philip
keeps away from Attica and the Peiraeus, he does the city no wrong and is
not committing acts of war. {8} But if _this_ is their criterion of right
and wrong, if _this_ is their definition of peace, then, although what
they say is iniquitous, intolerable, and inconsistent with your security,