On The Crown   

{276} In addition to everything else, as though he had himself always
spoken straightforwardly and in loyalty, he bade you keep your eyes on me
carefully, and make sure that I did not mislead or deceive you. He called
me 'a clever speaker', 'a wizard', 'a sophist', and so on: just as if it
followed that when a man had the first word and attributed his own
qualities to another, the truth was really as he stated, and his hearers
would not inquire further who he himself was, that said such things. But I
am sure that you all know this man, and are aware that these qualities
belong to him far more than to me. And again, {277} I am quite sure that
my cleverness--yes, let the word pass; though I observe that the influence
of a speaker depends for the most part on his audience; for in proportion
to the welcome and the goodwill which you accord to each speaker is the
credit which he obtains for wisdom;--I am sure, I say, that if I too
possess any such skill, you will all find it constantly fighting on your
behalf in affairs of State, never in opposition to you, never for private
ends; while the skill of Aeschines, on the contrary, is employed, not only
in upholding the cause of the enemy, but in attacking any one who has
annoyed him or come into collision with him anywhere. He neither employs
it uprightly, nor to promote the interests of the city. {278} For a good
and honourable citizen ought not to require from a jury, who have come
into court to represent the interests of the community, that they shall
give their sanction to his anger, or his enmity, or any other such
passion; nor ought he to come before you to gratify such feelings. It were
best that he had no such passions in his nature at all; but if they are
really inevitable, then he should keep them tame and subdued. Under what
circumstances, then, should a politician and an orator show passion? {279}
When any of the vital interests of his country are at stake; when it is
with its enemies that the People has to deal: those are the circumstances.
For then is the opportunity of a loyal and gallant citizen. But that when
he has never to this day demanded my punishment, either in the name of the
city or in his own, for any public--nor, I will add, for any private--
crime, he should have come here with a trumped-up charge against the grant
of a crown and a vote of thanks, and should have spent so many words upon
it--that is a sign of personal enmity and jealousy and meanness, not of
any good quality. {280} And that he should further have discarded every
form of lawsuit against myself, and should have come here to-day to attack
the defendant, is the very extremity of baseness. It shows, I think,
Aeschines, that your motive in undertaking this suit was your desire, not
to exact vengeance for any crime, but to give a display of rhetoric and
elocution. Yet it is not his language, Aeschines, that deserves our esteem
in an orator, nor the pitch of his voice, but his choice of the aims which
the people chooses, his hatred or love of those whom his country loves or
hates. {281} He whose heart is so disposed will always speak with loyal
intent; but he who serves those from whom the city foresees danger to
herself, does not ride at the same anchor as the People, and therefore
does not look for safety to the same quarter. But I do, mark you! For I
have made the interests of my countrymen my own, and have counted nothing
as reserved for my own private advantage. What? {282} You have not done so
either? How can that be, when immediately after the battle you went your
way as an ambassador to Philip, the author of the calamities which befell
your country at that time; and that, despite the fact that until then you
always denied this intimacy[n] with him, as every one knows? But what is
meant by a deceiver of the city? Is it not one who does not say what he
thinks? Upon whom does the herald justly pronounce the curse? Is it not
upon such a man as this? With what greater crime can one charge a man who
is an orator, than that of saying one thing and thinking another? Such a
man you have been found to be. {283} And after this do you open your
mouth, or dare to look this audience in the face? Do you imagine that they
do not know who you are? or that the slumber of forgetfulness has taken
such hold upon them all, that they do not remember the speeches which you
used to deliver during the war, when you declared with imprecations and
oaths that you had nothing to do with Philip, and that I was bringing this
accusation against you, when it was not true, to satisfy my personal