On The Crown   

annoyance; and so, men of Thebes and Thessaly, if you are wise, you will
regard them as enemies, and will trust me.' He does not write in those
actual terms, but that is what he intends to indicate. By these means he
so carried them away, that they did not foresee or realize any of the
consequences, but allowed him to get everything into his own power: and
that is why, poor men, they have experienced their present calamities.
{41} But the man who helped him to create this confidence, who co-operated
with him, who brought home that false report and deluded you, he it is who
now bewails the sufferings of the Thebans and enlarges upon their
piteousness--he, who is himself the cause both of these and of the misery
in Phocis, and of all the other evils which the Hellenes have endured.
Yes, it is evident that you are pained at what has come to pass,
Aeschines, and that you are sorry for the Thebans, when you have property
in Boeotia[n] and are farming the land that was theirs; and that I rejoice
at it--I, whose surrender was immediately demanded by the author of the
disaster! {42} But I have digressed into subjects of which it will perhaps
be more convenient to speak presently. I will return to the proofs which
show that it is the crimes of these men that are the cause of our
condition to-day.

For when you had been deceived by Philip, through the agency of these men,
who while serving as ambassadors had sold themselves and made a report in
which there was not a word of truth--when the unhappy Phocians had been
deceived and their cities annihilated--what followed? {43} The despicable
Thessalians and the slow-witted Thebans regarded Philip as their friend,
their benefactor, their saviour. Philip was their all-in-all. They would
not even listen to the voice of any one who wished to express a different
opinion. You yourselves, though you viewed what had been done with
suspicion and vexation, nevertheless kept the Peace; for there was nothing
else that you could have done. And the other Hellenes, who, like
yourselves, had been deluded and disappointed of their hopes,[n] also kept
the Peace, and gladly;[n] since in a sense they also were remotely aimed
at by the war. {44} For when Philip was going about and subduing the
Illyrians and Triballi and some of the Hellenes as well, and bringing many
large forces into his own power, and when some of the members of the
several States were taking advantage of the Peace to travel to Macedonia,
and were being corrupted--Aeschines among them--at such a time all of
those whom Philip had in view in thus making his preparations were really
being attacked by him. {45} Whether they failed to realize it is another
question, which does not concern me. For I was continually uttering
warnings and protests, both in your midst and wherever I was sent. But the
cities were stricken with disease: those who were engaged in political and
practical affairs were taking bribes and being corrupted by the hope of
money; while the mass of private citizens either showed no foresight, or
else were caught by the bait of ease and leisure from day to day; and all
alike had fallen victims to some such delusive fancy, as that the danger
would come upon every one but themselves, and that through the perils of
others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased.
{46} And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned
for their great and ill-timed indifference by the loss of their freedom,
while the leaders in affairs, who fancied that they were selling
everything except themselves, have realized that they had sold themselves
first of all. For instead of being called friends and guest-friends, as
they were called at the time when they were taking their bribes, they now
hear themselves called flatterers, and god-forsaken, and all the other
names that they deserve. {47} For no one, men of Athens, spends his money
out of a desire to benefit the traitor; nor, when once he has secured the
object for which he bargains, does he employ the traitor to advise him
with regard to other objects: if it were so, nothing could be happier than
a traitor. But it is not so, of course. Far from it! When the aspirant
after dominion has gained his object, he is also the master of those who
have sold it to him: and because then he knows their villainy, he then
hates and mistrusts them, and covers them with insults. {48} For observe--
for even if the time of the events is past, the time for realizing truths