that Fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he
might live in honour and glory? {68} And surely no one would dare to say
that it was fitting that in one bred at Pella, a place then inglorious and
insignificant, there should have grown up so lofty a spirit that he
aspired after the empire of Hellas, and conceived such a project in his
mind; but that in you, who are Athenians, and who day by day in all that
you hear and see behold the memorials of the gallantry of your
forefathers, such baseness should be found, that you would yield up your
liberty to Philip by your own deliberate offer and deed. {69} No man would
say this. One alternative remained, and that, one which you were bound to
take--that of a righteous resistance to the whole course of action by
which he was doing you injury. You acted thus from the first, quite
rightly and properly; while I helped by my proposals and advice during the
time of my political activity, and I do not deny it. But what ought I to
have done? For the time has come to ask you this, Aeschines, and to
dismiss everything else. {70} Amphipolis, Pydna, Poteidaea, Halonnesus--
all are blotted from my memory. As for Serrhium, Doriscus, the sack of
Peparethus, and all the other injuries inflicted upon the city, I renounce
all knowledge of their ever having happened--though you actually said that
_I_ involved my countrymen in hostility by talking of these things, when
the decrees which deal with them were the work of Eubulus and
Aristophon[n] and Diopeithes,[n] and not mine at all--so glibly do you
assert anything that suits your purpose! {71} But of this too I say
nothing at present. I only ask you whether Philip, who was appropriating
Euboea,[n] and establishing it as a stronghold to command Attica; who was
making an attempt upon Megara, seizing Oreus, razing the walls of
Porthmus, setting up Philistides as tyrant at Oreus and Cleitarchus at
Eretria, bringing the Hellespont into his own power, besieging Byzantium,
destroying some of the cities of Hellas, and restoring his exiled friends
to others--whether he, I say, in acting thus, was guilty of wrong,
violating the truce and breaking the Peace, or not? Was it fit that one of
the Hellenes should arise to prevent it, or not? {72} If it was not fit--
if it was fit that Hellas should become like the Mysian booty[n] in the
proverb before men's eyes, while the Athenians had life and being, then I
have lost my labour in speaking upon this theme, and the city has lost its
labour in obeying me: then let everything that has been done be counted
for a crime and a blunder, and those my own! But if it was right that one
should arise to prevent it, for whom could the task be more fitting than
for the people of Athens? That then, was the aim of _my_ policy; and when
I saw Philip reducing all mankind to servitude, I opposed him, and without
ceasing warned and exhorted you to make no surrender.

{73} But the Peace, Aeschines, was in reality broken by Philip, when he
seized the corn-ships, not by Athens. (_To the clerk_.) Bring the decrees
themselves, and the letter of Philip, and read them in order. (_To the
jury_.) For they will make it clear who is responsible, and for what.

{74} [_A decree is read_.]

{75} This decree then was proposed by Eubulus, not by me; and the next by
Aristophon; he is followed first by Hegesippus, and he by Aristophon
again, and then by Philocrates, then by Cephisophon, and then by all of
them. But I proposed no decree upon this subject. (_To the clerk_.) Read.

[_Decrees are read_.]

{76} As then I point to these decrees, so, Aeschines, do you point to a
decree of any kind, proposed by me, which makes me responsible for the
war. You cannot do so: for had you been able, there is nothing which you
would sooner have produced. Indeed, even Philip himself makes no charge
against me as regards the war, though he complains of others. (_To the
clerk_.) Read Philip's letter itself.

{77, 78} [_Philip's letter is read_.]