fight him on equal terms.

{48} It may be thought that this policy demands heavy expenditure, and
great exertions and trouble. That is true indeed; but let the objector
take into account what the consequences to the city must be, if he is
unwilling to assent to this policy, and he will find that the ready
performance of duty brings its reward. {49} If indeed some god is offering
us his guarantee--for no human guarantee would be sufficient in so great a
matter--that if you remain at peace and let everything slide, Philip will
not in the end come and attack yourselves; then, although, before God and
every Heavenly Power, it would be unworthy of you and of the position that
the city holds, and of the deeds of our forefathers, to abandon all the
rest of the Hellenes to slavery for the sake of our own ease--although,
for my part, I would rather have died than have suggested such a thing--
yet, if another proposes it and convinces you, let it be so: do not defend
yourselves: let everything go. {50} But if no one entertains such a
belief, if we all know that the very opposite is true, and that the wider
the mastery we allow him to gain, the more difficult and powerful a foe we
shall have to deal with, what further subterfuge is open to us? Why do we
delay? {51} When shall we ever be willing, men of Athens, to do our duty?
'When we are compelled,' you say. But the hour of compulsion, as the word
is applied to free men, is not only here already, but has long passed; and
we must surely pray that the compulsion which is put upon slaves may not
come upon us. And what is the difference? It is this--that for a free man
the greatest compelling force is his shame at the course which events are
taking--I do not know what greater we can imagine; but the slave is
compelled by blows and bodily tortures, which I pray may never fall to our
lot; it is not fit to speak of them.

{52} I would gladly tell you the whole story, and show how certain persons
are working for your ruin by their policy. I pass over, however, every
point but this. Whenever any question of our relations with Philip arises,
at once some one stands up and talks of the blessings of peace, of the
difficulty of maintaining a large force, and of designs on the part of
certain persons to plunder our funds; with other tales of the same kind,
which enable them to delay your action, and give Philip time to do what he
wishes unopposed. {53} What is the result? For you the result is your
leisure, and a respite from immediate action--advantages which I fear you
will some day feel to have cost you dear; and for them it is the favour
they win, and the wages for these services. But I am sure that there is no
need to persuade you to keep the Peace--you sit here fully persuaded. It
is the man who is committing acts of war that we need to persuade; for if
he is persuaded, you are ready enough. {54} Nor is it the expenditure
which is to ensure our preservation that ought to distress us, but the
fate which is in prospect for us, if we are not willing to take this
action: while the threatened 'plunder of our funds' is to be prevented by
the proposal of some safeguard which will render them secure, not by the
abandonment of our interests. {55} And even so, men of Athens, I feel
indignant at the very fact that some of you are so much pained at the
prospect of the plunder of our funds, when you have it in your power both
to protect them and to punish the culprits, and yet feel no pain when
Philip is seizing all Hellas piecemeal for his plunder, and seizing it to
strengthen himself against you. {56} What then is the reason, men of
Athens, that though Philip's campaigns, his aggressions, his seizure of
cities, are so unconcealed, none of my opponents has ever said that _he_
was bringing about war? Why is it those who advise you not to allow it,
not to make these sacrifices, that they accuse, and say that _they_ will
be the cause of the war? I will inform you. {57} It is because[n] they
wish to divert the anger which you are likely to show, if you suffer at
all from the war, on to the heads of those who are giving you the best
advice in your own interests. They want you to sit and try such persons,
instead of resisting Philip; and they themselves are to be the
prosecutors, instead of paying the penalty for their present actions. That
is the meaning of their assertion that there are some here, forsooth, who