On The Crown   

not do so then, at least inform us now, and tell us what words, which
should have been upon my lips, were left unspoken, what precious
opportunity, offered to the city, was left unused, by me? What alliance
was there, what course of action, to which I ought, by preference, to have
guided my countrymen?

{192} But with all mankind the past is always dismissed from
consideration, and no one under any circumstances proposes to deliberate
about it. It is the future or the present that make their call upon a
statesman's duty. Now at that time the danger was partly in the future,
and partly already present; and instead of cavilling disingenuously at the
results, consider the principle of my policy under such circumstances. For
in everything the final issue falls out as Heaven wills; but the principle
which he follows itself reveals the mind of the statesman. {193} Do not,
therefore, count it a crime on my part, that Philip proved victorious in
the battle. The issue of that event lay with God, not with me. But show me
that I did not adopt every expedient that was possible, so far as human
reason could calculate; that I did not carry out my plan honestly and
diligently, with exertions greater than my strength could bear; or that
the policy which I initiated was not honourable, and worthy of Athens, and
indeed necessary: and then denounce me, but not before. {194} But if the
thunderbolt [or the storm] which fell has proved too mighty, not only for
us, but for all the other Hellenes, what are we to do? It is as though a
ship-owner, who had done all that he could to ensure safety, and had
equipped the ship with all that he thought would enable her to escape
destruction, and had then met with a tempest in which the tackling had
been strained or even broken to pieces, were to be held responsible for
the wreck of the vessel. 'Why,' he would say, 'I was not steering the
ship'--just as I was not the general[n]--'I had no power over Fortune: she
had power over everything.' But consider and observe this point. {195} If
it was fated that we should fare as we did, even when we had the Thebans
to help us in the struggle, what must we have expected, if we had not had
even them for our allies, but they had joined Philip?--and this was the
object for which Philip employed[n] every tone that he could command. And
if, when the battle took place, as it did, three days' march from Attica,
the city was encompassed by such peril and terror, what should we have had
to expect, if this same disaster had occurred anywhere within the borders
of our own country? Do you realize that, as it was, a single day, and a
second, and a third gave us the power to rally, to collect our forces, to
take breath, to do much that made for the deliverance of the city: but
that had it been otherwise--it is not well, however, to speak of things
which we have not had to experience, thanks to the goodwill of one of the
gods, and to the protection which the city obtained for herself in this
alliance, which you denounce.

{196} The whole of this long argument, gentlemen of the jury, is addressed
to yourselves and to the circle of listeners outside the bar; for to this
despicable man it would have been enough to address a short, plain
sentence. If to you alone, Aeschines, the future was clear, before it
came, you should have given warning, when the city was deliberating upon
the subject; but if you had no such foreknowledge, you have the same
ignorance to answer for as others. Why then should you make these charges
against me, any more than I against you? {197} For I have been a better
citizen than you with regard to this very matter of which I am speaking--I
am not as yet talking of anything else--just in so far as I gave myself up
to the policy which all thought expedient, neither shrinking from nor
regarding any personal risk; while you neither offered any better
proposals than mine (for then they would not have followed mine), nor yet
made yourself useful in advancing mine in any way. What the most worthless
of men, the bitterest enemy of the city, would do, you are found to have
done, when all was over; and at the same time as the irreconcilable
enemies of the city, Aristratus in Naxos, and Aristoleos in Thasos, are
bringing the friends of Athens to trial, Aeschines, in Athens itself, is
accusing Demosthenes. {198} But surely one who treasured up[n] the