Against Ctesiphon

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 299 sections

170.1
Thirdly, he ought to be temperate and self-restrained in his daily life, lest to support his wanton extravagance he take bribes against the people. Fourthly, he ought to be a man of good judgment and an able speaker; for it is well that his discernment choose the wisest course, and his training in rhetoric and his eloquence persuade the hearers; but if he cannot have both, good judgment is always to be preferred to eloquence of speech. Fifthly, he ought to be a man of brave heart, that in danger and peril he may not desert the people. But the oligarch we should expect to have all the opposite qualities; why need I go over them again? Examine, then, and see what one of these qualities belongs to Demosthenes. And let the reckoning be made with all fairness.
171.1
His father was Demosthenes of Paeania, a free man, for there is no need of lying. But how the case stands as to his inheritance from his mother and his maternal grandfather, I will tell you. There was a certain Gylon of Cerameis. This man betrayed Nymphaeum in the Pontus to the enemy, for the place at that time belonged to our city. He was impeached and became an exile from the city, not awaiting trial. He came to Bosporus and there received as a present from the tyrants of the land a place called the Gardens.
172.1
Here he married a woman who was rich, I grant you, and brought him a big dowry, but a Scythian by blood. This wife bore him two daughters, whom he sent hither with plenty of money. One he married to a man whom I will not name—for I do not care to incur the enmity of many persons,—the other, in contempt of the laws of the city, Demosthenes of Paeania took to wife. She it was who bore your busy-body and informer. From his grandfather, therefore, he would inherit enmity toward the people, for you condemned his ancestors to death and by his mother’s blood he would be a Scythian, a Greek-tongued barbarian—so that his knavery, too, is no product of our soil.
173.1
But in daily life what is he? From being a trierarch he suddenly came forward as a hired writer of speeches, when he had disreputably squandered his patrimony. But when he had lost his reputation even in this profession, for he disclosed his clients’ arguments to their opponents, he vaulted on to the political platform. And though he made enormous profits out of politics, he laid up next to nothing. It is true that just now the Persian’s gold has floated his extravagance, but even that will not suffice, for no wealth ever yet kept up with a debauched character. And to sum it all up, he supplies his wants, not from his private income, but from your perils.
174.1
But as regards good judgment and power of speech, how does it stand with him? Eloquent of speech, infamous of life! For so licentious has been his treatment of his own body that I prefer not to describe his conduct; for before now I have seen people hated who recount too exactly the sins of their neighbors. Then again, what is the outcome for the city? His words are fine, his acts worthless.
175.1
But as concerns his bravery little remains for me to say. For if he denied that he is a coward, or if you did not know it as well as he does himself, the account of it would have detained me. But since he admits it himself in the assembly, and you are perfectly aware of it, it remains only to remind you of the laws as to this matter. For Solon, the ancient lawgiver, thought it necessary to apply the same penalties to the coward as to the man who failed to take the field or the man who deserted his post. For there are such things as indictments for cowardice. Some of you may indeed be surprised to know that there are indictments for inborn defects. There are. To what end? In order that each man of us, fearing the punishment of the laws more than he fears the enemy, may become a better champion of his country.
176.1
Therefore the man who fails to take the field, and the coward, and the man who has deserted his post are excluded by the lawgiver from the purified precincts of the Agora, and may not be crowned, nor take part in the sacred rites of the people. But you, Ctesiphon, command us to crown the man who by command of the laws is uncrowned; and by your decree you invite into the orchestra at the time of the tragedies the man who has no right to enter, and into the shrine of Dionysus the man who has betrayed all our shrines through cowardice.
176.2
But that I may not lead you away from the subject, remember this when he says that he is the friend of the people; examine, not his speech, but his life; and consider, not who he says he is, but who he is.
177.1
I have mentioned crowns and rewards. Let me, fellow citizens, while I still have the matter in mind, warn you that unless you put a stop to these prodigal gifts and these crowns thoughtlessly bestowed, neither those who receive honors from you will be grateful, nor will the prosperity of the city be restored. For you will never in the world reform those who are bad, and the good you will plunge into extreme discouragement. But I will present proofs which I think will convince you that what I say is true.
178.1
If any one should ask you whether our city seems to you more glorious in our own time or in the time of our fathers, you would all agree, in the time of our fathers. And were there better men then than now? Then, eminent men; but now, far inferior. But rewards and crowns and proclamations, and maintenance in the Prytaneum—were these things more common then than now? Then, honors were rare among us, and the name of virtue was itself an honor. But now the custom is already completely faded out, and you do the crowning as a matter of habit, not deliberately.
179.1
Are you not therefore surprised, when you look at it in this light, that the rewards are now more numerous, but the city was then more prosperous? And that the men are now inferior, but were better then? I will try to explain this to you. Do you think, fellow citizens, that any man would ever have been willing to train for the pancratium or any other of the harder contests in the Olympic games, or any of the other games that confer a crown, if the crown were given, not to the best man, but to the man who had successfully intrigued for it? No man would ever have been willing.
180.1
But as it is, because the reward is rare, I believe, and because of the competition and the honor, and the undying fame that victory brings, men are willing to risk their bodies, and at the cost of the most severe discipline to carry the struggle to the end. Imagine, therefore, that you yourselves are the officials presiding over a contest in political virtue, and consider this, that if you give the prizes to few men and worthy, and in obedience to the laws, you will find many men to compete in virtue’s struggle; but if your gifts are compliments to any man who seeks them and to those who intrigue for them, you will corrupt even honest minds.
181.1
How true this is, I wish to teach you a little more explicitly. Does it seem to you that Themistocles, who was general when you conquered the Persian in the battle of Salamis, was the better man, or Demosthenes, who the other day deserted his post? Miltiades, who won the battle of Marathon, or yonder man? Further—the men who brought back the exiled democracy from Phyle? And Aristeides the Just, a title most unlike the name men give Demosthenes?
182.1
But, by the Olympian gods, I think one ought not to name those men on the same day with this monster! Now let Demosthenes show if anywhere stands written an order to crown any one of those men. Was the democracy, then, ungrateful? No, but noble-minded, and those men were worthy of their city. For they thought that their honor should be conferred, not in written words, but in the memory of those whom they had served; and from that time until this day it abides, immortal. But what rewards they did receive, it is well to recall.
183.1
There were certain men in those days, fellow citizens, who endured much toil and underwent great dangers at the river Strymon, and conquered the Medes in battle. When they came home they asked the people for a reward, and the democracy gave them great honor, as it was then esteemed—permission to set up three stone Hermae in the Stoa of the Hermae, but on condition that they should not inscribe their own names upon them, in order that the inscription might not seem to be in honor of the generals, but of the people.
184.1
That this is true, you shall learn from the verses themselves; for on the first of the Hermae stands written: Brave men and daring were they who once by the city of Eion, Far off by Strymon’s flood, fought with the sons of the Medes. Fiery famine they made their ally, and Ares on-rushing; So they found helpless a foe stranger till then to defeat. and on the second: This, the reward of their labour, has Athens bestowed on her leaders; Token of duty well done, honor to valor supreme. Whoso in years yet to be shall read these Ls in the marble, Gladly will toil in his turn, giving his life for the state.
185.1
And on the third of the Hermae stands written: Once from this city Menestheus, summoned to join the Atreidae, Led forth an army to Troy, plain beloved of the gods. Homer has sung of his fame, and has said that of all the mailed chieftains None could so shrewdly as he marshal the ranks for the fight. Fittingly then shall the people of Athens be honored, and calledMarshals and leaders of war, heroes in combat of arms. Is the name of the generals anywhere here? Nowhere; only the name of the people.
186.1
And now pass on in imagination to the Stoa Poecile; for the memorials of all our noble deeds stand dedicated in the Agora. What is it then, fellow citizens, to which I refer? The battle of Marathon is pictured there. Who then was the general? If you were asked this question you would all answer, Miltiades. But his name is not written there. Why? Did he not ask for this reward? He did ask, but the people refused it; and instead of his name they permitted that he should be painted in the front rank, urging on his men.
187.1
Again, in the Metroön you may see the reward that you gave to the band from Phyle, who brought the people back from exile. For Archinus of Coele, one of the men who brought back the people, was the author of the resolution. He moved, first, to give them for sacrifice and dedicatory offerings a thousand drachmas, less than ten drachmas per man; then that they be crowned each with a crown of olive (not of gold, for then the crown of olive was prized, but today even a crown of gold is held in disdain). And not even this will he allow to be done carelessly, but only after careful examination by the Senate, to determine who of them actually stood siege at Phyle when the Lacedaemonians and the Thirty made their attack, not those who deserted their post—as at Chaeroneia—in the face of the advancing enemy. As proof of what I say, the clerk shall read the resolution to you.
188.1
Resolution as to the Reward of the Band from Phyle
188.2
Now over against this read the resolution which Ctesiphon has proposed for Demosthenes, the man who is responsible for our greatest disasters.
188.3
The Resolution
188.4
By this resolution the reward of those who restored the democracy is annulled. If this resolution is good, the other was bad. If they were worthily honored, this man is unworthy of the crown that is proposed.
189.1
And yet I am told that he intends to say that I am unfair in holding up his deeds for comparison with those of our fathers. For he will say that Philammon the boxer was crowned at Olympia, not as having defeated Glaucus, that famous man of ancient days, but because he beat the antagonists of his own time; as though you did not know that in the case of boxers the contest is of one man against another, but for those who claim a crown, the standard is virtue itself; since it is for this that they are crowned. For the herald must not lie when he makes his proclamation in the theater before the Greeks. Do not, then, recount to us how you have been a better citizen than Pataecion, but first attain unto nobility of character, and then call on the people for their grateful acknowledgment.
190.1
But lest I lead you away from the subject, the clerk shall read to you the epigram that is inscribed in honor of the band from Phyle, who restored the democracy. EpigramThese men, noble of heart, hath the ancient Athenian people Crowned with an olive crown. First were they to oppose Tyrants who knew not the laws, whose rule was the rule of injustice. Danger they met unafraid, pledging their lives to the cause.
191.1
Because they put down those who ruled unlawfully, for this cause the poet says they were honored. For then it was still in the ears of all men that the democracy was overthrown only after certain men had put out of the way the provision for the indictment of men who propose illegal measures. Yes, as I have heard my own father say, for he lived to be ninety-five years old, and had shared all the toils of the city, which he often described to me in his leisure hours—well, he said that in the early days of the re-established democracy, if any indictment for an illegal motion came into court, the word was as good as the deed. For what is more wicked than the man who speaks and does what is unlawful?
192.1
And in those days, so my father said, they gave no such hearing as is given now, but the jurors were far more severe toward the authors of illegal motions than was the accuser himself; and it frequently happened that they made the clerk stop, and told him to read to them the laws and the motion a second time; and they convicted a man of making an illegal motion, not in case he had overleaped all the laws together, but if one syllable only was contravened. But the process as it is conducted nowadays is ridiculous. The clerk reads the statement of the illegality which is charged, and the jurors, as though hearing an incantation, or some matter which is no concern of theirs, are attending to something else.
193.1
And already as a result of the tricks of Demosthenes you have admitted a shameful custom into your courts; for you have allowed your legal procedure to become perverted: the accuser is on the defensive, and the defendant plays the part of accuser; and the jurors sometimes forget what they are to judge, and are forced to bring in a verdict on matters which were never committed to their decision; while the defendant, if by any chance he does touch on the question at issue, pleads, not that his motion was lawful, but that on some past occasion another man has made an equally unlawful motion and been acquitted; a plea in which I hear Ctesiphon now places great confidence.
194.1
Once the famous Aristophon of Azenia dared in your presence to boast that he had been acquitted seventy-five times on charge of making illegal motions. Not so the venerable Cephalus, famous as the truest representative of democracy—not so, but he took pride in the very opposite fact, saying that although he had been the author of more measures than any other man, he had never once been indicted for an illegal motion; an honorable pride, I think. For indictments for illegal motions were in those times brought, not only by political rivals against one another, but by friend against friend, if one was responsible for any error toward the state. Yes, the following shall serve as an illustration:
195.1
Archinus of Coele brought an indictment for an illegal motion against Thrasybulus of Steiria, one of his own companions in the return from Phyle; and he convicted him and though his services were recent, the jurors did not take them into account; for they thought that, just as Thrasybulus had brought them back from exile then, so now when they had been restored, by making a motion which was against the laws he was driving them into exile again.
196.1
But it is not so today; the very opposite is done. For your worthy generals, and some of those who have received maintenance in the Prytaneum, beg men off who have been indicted for illegal motions. But you ought to regard them as ungrateful. For if any man who has been honored in a democracy, a government which owes its safety to the gods and to the laws, dares to aid men who make illegal motions, he is undermining the government from which he received his honors.
197.1
But I will tell you what plea is in order from the honest advocate. When an indictment for an illegal motion is tried in court, the day is divided into three parts. The first water is poured in for the accuser, the laws, and the democracy the second water, for the defendant and those who speak on the question at issue; but when the question of illegality has been decided by the first ballot, then the third water is poured in for the question of the penalty and the extent of your anger.
198.1
Whoever therefore in the discussion on the penalty asks for your vote, is begging you to mitigate your anger; but he who in the first speech asks for your vote is asking you to surrender your oath, to surrender the law, to surrender the democratic constitution things which no man has a right to ask you to surrender, nor any man to grant another for his asking. Bid them, therefore, to allow you to cast your first ballot according to the laws, before they plead on the question of penalty.
199.1
In short, fellow citizens, for my part I am almost ready to say that we ought to pass a special law governing indictments for illegal motions, which shall forbid either accuser or defendant to call in advocates. For the question of right involved is not an indefinite one, but is defined by your own laws. For as in carpentry, when we wish to know what is straight and what is not, we apply the carpenters’ rule, which serves as our standard,
200.1
so in indictments for illegal motions there lies ready to our hand as a rule of justice this tablet, containing the measure proposed and the laws which it transgresses. Show that these agree one with another, Ctesiphon, and then take your seat. Why need you call Demosthenes to your support? When you overleap the just defence and call forward a rascal and a rhetorician, you cheat the ears of the jury, you injure the city, you undermine the democracy.
201.1
How you may avert speeches of that sort, fellow citizens, I will tell you. When Ctesiphon comes forward here and recites to you that introduction which has of course been composed for him, and when he then tries to kill time, and makes no answer to the charge, suggest to him, quietly, that he take the tablet and read the laws and his resolution side by side. If he pretends that he does not hear you, then do you refuse to hear him. For you have not come here to listen to men who dodge an honest defence, but to those who are willing to defend themselves with justice.
202.1
But if he shall overleap the just defence and call Demosthenes to the platform, the best course for you is to refuse to receive a sophist, who expects to overthrow the laws with words. And when Ctesiphon asks you if he shall call Demosthenes, let no man of you consider that he is doing a meritorious thing in being the first to cry, Aye, call him, call him. Against yourself you are calling him, against the laws you are calling him, against the constitution you are calling him. But if after all you decide to listen, demand that Demosthenes make his defence in the same way in which I have made the accusation. In what way have I made the accusation? Let me recall it to you.
203.1
I did not at the beginning review the private life of Demosthenes, nor did I at the beginning call to mind a single one of his public crimes—though I certainly had great abundance of material, or else I must be the most helpless of mortals—but first I exhibited the laws which forbid crowning men who have not yet rendered their accounts, and then I convicted the orator of having moved to crown Demosthenes before he had rendered account, and that too without inserting the qualifying proviso, When he shall have rendered account, but in utter contempt of you and of your laws. And I told you what excuses they would offer for this, which I earnestly pray you to keep in mind.
204.1
Secondly, I recited to you the laws which govern proclamations, in which it is expressly forbidden that when one is crowned by the people the proclamation shall be made in any other place than in the assembly. But the politician who is the defendant in this case has not only transgressed the laws, but the time of proclamation, and the place of it; for he orders the proclamation to be made, not in the assembly, but in the theater, not when the Athenian assembly is in session, but when the tragedies are about to he performed. After saying this, I spoke briefly about his private life, but chiefly about his public crimes.
205.1
I insist, therefore, that you demand the same order of defence from Demosthenes; first, let him defend himself against the law of accountability, secondly, against the law which governs proclamations, and thirdly, and most important, let him show also that he is not unworthy of the reward. But if he asks you to indulge him as to the order of his speech, and solemnly promises that at the close of his defence he will clear away the matter of illegality, do not yield to him, and do not forget that this is an old trick of the court-room. For he would never of his own choice return to the defence against the illegality but because he has nothing to say which is just, he seeks by the insertion of extraneous matters to plunge you into forgetfulness of the charge.
206.1
As, therefore, in gymnastic contests you see the boxers contending with one another for position, so do you for the city’s sake fight with him the whole day long for position as regards argument; and do not let him set his feet outside the bounds of the illegality charged, but watch him and lie in wait for him as you listen, drive him into discussion of the illegality, and look out for the twists and turns of his speech.
207.1
What, on the other hand, will surely be the result for you if you listen in the way that they propose, I ought now to forewarn you. For the defendant will call to his aid this juggler and cut-purse, a man who has torn the constitution to shreds. This man weeps more readily than other men laugh, and nothing is so easy for him as perjury. And I should not wonder if he should change his tactics and slander the listeners outside the bar, alleging that those whom truth herself has singled out and counted as oligarchs have come to the platform of the prosecution, but all the friends of the people to the platform of the defence.
208.1
Now when he talks like that, in answer to such appeals to faction, make this suggestion to him: Demosthenes, if the men of Phyle, who brought back the people from exile, had been like you, never had the democracy been reestablished. But as it was, they saved the city out of great disasters, and gave utterance to those words which are the fairest product of enlightened minds, ‘Forgive and forget.’ But as for you, you tear open old sores, and you care more for the words of the moment than for the safety of the state.
208.2
But when, perjurer that he is, he takes refuge in the confidence which you place in oaths, remind him of this, that when a man repeatedly perjures himself, and yet is continually demanding to be believed because of his oaths, one of two things ought to be true, either the gods ought to be new gods, or the hearers not the same.
209.1
But in answer to his tears and the straining of his voice when he asks you, Whither shall I flee, fellow citizens? You have compassed me about, I have not whither to take wings, suggest to him, But the Athenian people, Demosthenes, whither shall they flee? What allies have been made ready to receive them? What resources are prepared? What bulwark have you thrown up before the people by your policies? For we all see what provision you have made for yourself. You have left the upper city and the Peiraeus, as it seems, is not so much your home, as an anchorage for you, off the city’s coast. And you have provided as means for your cowardly flight, the King’s gold and the fruits of your political bribery.
210.1
But, after all, why these tears? Why all this noise? Why this straining of the voice? Is it not Ctesiphon who is the defendant? Is not the suit one in which the penalty is for the jury to determine? Is it not true that you are pleading neither for your person nor for your citizenship nor for your property? But what is this anxiety of his about? About crowns of gold and proclamations in the theater—against the laws.
211.1
Nay, but if the people gone mad, or forgetful of the existing situation, had actually wished to crown him at a time so unfitting, he ought to have come before the assembly and said, Fellow citizens, I accept the crown, but I do not approve the time at which the proclamation is to be made. For events which have caused our city to shear her head in mourning are no fitting occasion for my head to receive a crown. This I think a man would say whose life had been one of genuine virtue.
212.1
But the words which you, Demosthenes, will speak, are the natural expression of a worthless scoundrel, with whom virtue is a pretence. One thing at any rate is sure, by Heracles; no one of you will feel any anxiety lest Demosthenes, a man high-spirited and distinguished in war, will, if he fails to receive the meed of valor, go back home and make away with himself—he who so despises honor in your eyes that on this pestilential and accountable head of his upon which Ctesiphon, in defiance of all the laws, proposes that you set a crown, he has inflicted a thousand gashes, and he has made money out of his wounds by bringing suit for malicious assault. And on one occasion he got such a smashing blow that I imagine he still carries the visible marks of Meidias’ knuckles. For it is not a head that the creature possesses, but an investment.
213.1
Now I wish to speak briefly about Ctesiphon, the author of the motion; and I will pass over the greater part of what might be said, for I should like to test your ability, even when no one cautions you, to discern those men who are utter rascals. I will speak only of what is common to the pair of them, and what I can honestly report to you concerning both. For the opinion that each of them has of the other is true, and the things that each, as he goes about the market-place, says of the other are no falsehoods.
214.1
For Ctesiphon says he is not afraid so far as he himself is concerned, since he hopes it will appear that he is but a plain citizen, but that what he does fear is Demosthenes’ corruption in his conduct of affairs, and his instability and cowardice. And Demosthenes says that when he looks at his own case only, he is confident, but that he is exceedingly anxious in view of Ctesiphon’s wickedness and licentiousness! Well, when men have thus condemned one another, you, the common judges of both, must surely not acquit them of the crimes they charge.
215.1
I wish also to caution you in a few words as to the slanders which they will utter against me. For I learn that Demosthenes will say that the city has been greatly benefited by him, but damaged by me and he will bring up against me Philip and Alexander, and the charges connected with them. And he is, as it seems, such a master-craftsman of words that he is not content to bring charges against whatever part I have taken in your political action, or whatever speeches I have delivered,
216.1
but he actually attacks the very quietness of my life, and makes my silence an accusation, in order that no topic may be left untouched by his slanders. And he censures my frequenting of the gymnasia with the younger men. And at the very beginning of his speech he demurs against this legal process, saying that I instituted the suit, not in behalf of the city, but as a manifesto to Alexander because he hates Demosthenes.
217.1
And, by Zeus, I understand that he proposes to ask me why I denounce his policy as a whole, but did not try to thwart it in detail, and did not prefer charges in the courts: and why I have brought suit at this late day without having steadily attacked his policy. But I have never in the past emulated the habits of Demosthenes, nor am I ashamed of my own, nor would I wish unsaid the words which I have spoken in your presence, nor would I care to live had my public speeches been like his.
218.1
As to my silence, Demosthenes, it has been caused by the moderation of my life. For a little money suffices me, and I have no shameful lust for more. Both my silence and my speech are therefore the result of deliberation, not of the impulse of a spendthrift nature. But you, I think, are silent when you have gotten, and bawl aloud after you have spent; and you speak, not when your judgment approves, and not what you wish to speak, but whenever your pay-masters so order. And you are not ashamed of impostures in which you are instantly convicted of falsehood.
219.1
For my suit against this motion, which you say I instituted, not in the city’s behalf, but as a manifesto to Alexander, was instituted while Philip was still alive, before Alexander had come to the throne, before ever you had had that dream of yours about Pausanias, or ever had conversed with Athena and Hera in the night. How then could I have been already making a manifesto to Alexander? Unless, indeed, I and Demosthenes had the same dream!
220.1
And you blame me if I come before the people, not constantly, but only at intervals. And you imagine that your bearers fail to detect you in thus making a demand which is no outgrowth of democracy, but borrowed from another form of government. For in oligarchies it is not he who wishes, but he who is in authority, that addresses the people; whereas in democracies he speaks who chooses, and whenever it seems to him good. And the fact that a man speaks only at intervals marks him as a man who takes part in politics because of the call of the hour, and for the common good; whereas to leave no day without its speech, is the mark of a man who is making a trade of it, and talking for pay.
221.1
But as to your never having been brought to trial by me, and never having been punished for your crimes—when you take refuge in assertions like that, either you think that your bearers are forgetful, or you are deceiving yourself.
221.2
Your impiety in the case of the Amphissians and your corruption in the Euboean affair, of which you were clearly convicted by me, perhaps you hope the people have forgotten in the lapse of time;
222.1
but what length of time could conceal your acts of plunder in the case of the triremes and the trierarchs? For when you had carried constitutional amendments as to the Three Hundred, and had persuaded the Athenians to make you Commissioner of the Navy, you were convicted by me of having stolen away trierarchs from sixty-five swift ships, making away with a greater naval force of the city than that with which the Athenians once defeated Pollis and the Lacedaemonians at Naxos.
223.1
And by your recriminations you so blocked the punishment which was your due that the danger came, not upon you, the wrong-doer, but upon those who attempted to proceed against you; for in your charges you everlastingly brought forward Alexander and Philip, and complained that certain persons were fettering the opportunities of the city—you who always ruin the opportunity of to-day, and guarantee that of to-morrow. And when at last you were on the point of being impeached by me, did you not contrive the arrest of Anaxinus of Oreus, who was making purchases for Olympias?
224.1
And you twice put to the torture with your own hand and moved to punish with death the same man in whose house you had been entertained at Oreus. The man with whom at the same table you had eaten and drunken and poured libations, the man with whom you had clasped hands in token of friendship and hospitality, that man you put to death! When I convicted you of this in the presence of all Athens, and charged you with being the murderer of your host, you did not deny the impious crime, but gave an answer that called forth a cry of protest from the citizens and all the foreigners who were standing about the assembly. For you said that you held the city’s salt as of more importance than the table of your foreign host.
225.1
I say nothing of forged letters and the arrest of spies, and torture applied on groundless charges, on your assertion that I with certain persons was seeking a revolution.
225.2
Furthermore, he intends, as I learn, to ask me what kind of a physician he would be who should give no advice to his patient in the course of his illness, but after his death should come to the funeral and tell over to the relatives by what course of treatment the man might have been cured.
226.1
But, Demosthenes, you fail to ask yourself in turn what kind of a statesman he would be who, having the power to cajole the people, should sell the opportunities for saving the city, and by his calumnies prevent patriots from giving advice; and when he had run away from danger and had entangled the city in misfortunes from which there was no escape, should demand that he be crowned for his virtue, when he had done nothing that was good, but was himself responsible for all the disasters; and should then ask those who had been driven out of public life by his slanders in those critical days when there was still a chance of safety, why they had not prevented his wrong doing;
227.1
and should conceal the final fact of all, that after the battle we had no time to attend to punishing you, but were engrossed in negotiations for the safety of the city. But when, not content with having escaped punishment, you were actually calling for rewards, making the city an object of ridicule in the eyes of all Hellas, then I interposed and brought my indictment.
228.1
And, by the Olympian gods, of all the things which I understand Demosthenes is going to say, I am most indignant at what I am now about to tell you. For he likens me in natural endowment to the Sirens, saying that it was not charm that the Sirens brought to those who listened to them, but destruction, and that therefore the Siren-song has no good repute; and that in like manner the smooth flow of my speech and my natural ability have proved the ruin of those who have listened to me. And yet I think no man in the world is justified in making such a statement about me. It is a shame to accuse a man and not to be able to show the ground for the accusation.
229.1
But if the charge really had to be made, it was not for Demosthenes to make it, but for some general who, although he had rendered distinguished services to the state, was not gifted with the power of speech, and for that reason was envious of the natural endowments of his opponents in court, because he knew that he had not the ability to describe one of all the things he had accomplished, but saw in his accuser a man able to set forth to the hearers in all detail how he had himself administered things which had not been done by him at all. But when a man who is made up of words, and those words bitter words and useless—when such a man takes refuge in simplicity and the facts, who could have patience with him? If you treat him as you might a clarinet, and take out his tongue, you have nothing left!
230.1
But for my part I am surprised at you, fellow citizens, and I ask under what possible consideration you could refuse to sustain this indictment. On the ground that Ctesiphon’s motion is lawful? Never was a more unlawful motion made. On the ground that he who moved the decree is not the sort of man to be punished? You give up the possibility of calling any man to account for his manner of life, if you let this man go. And is it not vexatious that whereas in former times the orchestra was piled with golden crowns with which the state was honored by the Hellenes, today in consequence of the policies of Demosthenes you the people go uncrowned and unproclaimed, but he is to be honored by the voice of the herald?
231.1
If any one of the tragic poets who are to bring on their plays after the crowning should in a tragedy represent Thersites as crowned by the Greeks, no one of you would tolerate it, for Homer says he was a coward and a slanderer; but when you yourselves crown such a man as this, think you not that you would be hissed by the voice of Hellas? Your fathers were wont to attribute to the people such deeds as were glorious and brilliant, but mean and unworthy acts they threw upon the incompetent politicians. But Ctesiphon thinks that you ought to take off from Demosthenes his ill-fame, and crown the people with it.
232.1
And while you assert that you are favorites of fortune—as indeed you are, thank heaven—will you declare by public resolution that you have been abandoned by fortune, but blessed by Demosthenes? And—strangest of all—in the same court-rooms do you disfranchise those who are convicted of receiving bribes, and then yourselves propose to crown a man who, to your own knowledge, has always been in politics for pay? If the judges at the Dionysiac festival are not honest in their award of the prize to the cyclic choruses, you punish them; but do you yourselves, who are sitting as judges, not of cyclic choruses, but of the laws and of integrity in public life, do you propose to bestow your rewards, not according to the laws, and not upon the rare and deserving, but upon the successful intriguer?
233.1
Furthermore, a juror who so acts will go out from the court-room responsible for having made himself weak and the politician strong. For in a democracy the private citizen is a king by virtue of the constitution and his own vote; but when he hands these over to another man, he has by his own act dethroned himself. Still further, the oath that he has sworn before taking his seat haunts him and troubles him, for it was his oath, I think, that made his act a sin; and his service is unknown to the man whom he was trying to please, for the vote is cast in secret.
234.1
But it seems to me, fellow citizens, that the political situation, while fortunate, is also perilous; for we are not wise. The fact that at the present time you, the people, give over the mainstays of the democracy to the few is to be deplored; but the fact that there has not sprung up to our hurt a crop of politicians both corrupt and daring is a gift of fortune. For in former times the state did bring forth such characters, and they made short work of putting down the democracy. For the people loved to be flattered, and in consequence were overthrown, not by the men whom they feared, but by those in whose hands they had placed themselves.
235.1
And some of them actually joined the Thirty, who killed more than fifteen hundred of the citizens without trial, before they had even heard the charges on which they were to be put to death, and who would not even allow the relatives to be present at the burial of the dead. Will you not hold the politicians under your control? Will you not humble and dismiss those who are now exultant? Will you not bear in mind that in the past no one has ever attempted the overthrow of the democracy until he has made himself stronger than the courts?
236.1
But I would like to reckon up in your presence, fellow citizens, with the author of this motion, the benefactions for which he calls on you to crown Demosthenes. For if, Ctesiphon, you propose to cite that which you made the beginning of your motion, that he did good work in excavating the trenches around the walls, I am astonished at you. For to have been responsible for the necessity of doing the work at all involves an accusation greater than is the credit for having done it well. Indeed, it is not for surrounding the walls with palisades, and not for tearing down the public tombs that the statesman of clean record ought to ask reward, but for having been responsible for some good to the city.
237.1
But if you turn to the second part of your decree, in which you have had the effrontery to write that he is a good man, and constantly speaks and does what is best for the Athenian people, omit the pretence and the bombast of your decree, and take hold of the facts, and show us what you mean. I pass by his corruption in the case of the Amphissians and Euboeans; but when you give Demosthenes the credit for the alliance with Thebes, you deceive the ignorant and insult the sensible and well informed. For in failing to mention the crisis and the prestige of these your fellow citizens, which were the real reasons why the alliance was made, you think you prevent our seeing that you are crowning Demosthenes with the credit which belongs to the city.
238.1
How great is this imposture, I will try to show you by a signal proof. Not long before Alexander crossed over into Asia, the king of the Persians sent to our people a most insolent and barbarous letter, in which everything was expressed in the most ill-mannered terms; and at the close he wrote, I will not give you gold; stop asking me for it; you will not get it.
239.1
But this same man, overtaken by the dangers which are now upon him, sent, not at the request of the Athenians, but of his own accord, three hundred talents to the people, which they were wise enough to refuse. Now what brought the gold was the crisis, and his fear, and his need of allies. And this same thing it was that brought about the alliance with Thebes. But you, Demosthenes, tire us out with your everlasting talk of Thebes and of that most ill-starred alliance, while you are silent as to the seventy talents of the king’s gold which you have seized and embezzled.
240.1
Was it not for lack of money, nay, for lack of five talents, that the mercenaries failed to deliver up the citadel to the Thebans? And when all the Arcadians were mobilized and their leaders were ready to bring aid, did not the negotiations fail for want of nine talents of silver? But you are a rich man, you serve as choregus—to your own lusts. In a word, the king’s gold stays with Demosthenes, the dangers, fellow citizens, with you.
241.1
But we may well consider their lack of good breeding also. For if Ctesiphon shall have the effrontery to call Demosthenes to the platform to speak to you, and he to come forward and praise himself, that will be even harder for you to hear than his deeds were to bear. We refuse to listen even to honest men when they speak their own praises, though we know full well how many noble deeds they have done; who, then, could endure to listen when a man who has made himself a disgrace to the city lauds himself?
242.1
From such shameless business as that, Ctesiphon, you will therefore withdraw, if you are wise, and make your defence in your own person. For surely you will not put forth this excuse, that you have not the ability to speak. It was only the other day that you allowed yourself to be elected as envoy to Cleopatra, the daughter of Philip, to condole with her over the death of Alexander, king of the Molossians; you would then be in a strange position today, if you should say that you have not the ability to speak. Have you, then, the ability to console a foreign woman in her grief, but when you have made a motion for pay, will you not speak in defence of it?
243.1
Or is the man whom you have moved to crown so obscure a man as not to be known by those whom he has served, unless some one shall help you to describe him? Pray ask the jury whether they knew Chabrias and Iphicrates and Timotheus, and inquire why they gave them those rewards and set up their statues. All will answer with one voice, that they honored Chabrias for the battle of Naxos, and Iphicrates because he destroyed a regiment of the Lacedaemonians, and Timotheus because of his voyage to Corcyra, and other men, each because of many a glorious deed in war.
244.1
But ask them why Demosthenes is to be honored. Because he is a taker of bribes? Because he is a coward? Because he deserted his post? And will you in reality be honoring him, or leaving unavenged yourselves and those who died for you in the battle? In imagination see them expostulating against the crowning of this man. When sticks and stones and iron, voiceless and senseless things, fall on any one and kill him, we cast them beyond the borders, and when a man kills himself, the hand that did the deed is buried apart from the body;
245.1
how outrageous, then, fellow citizens, if Demosthenes, who made the motion for that final campaign, and then betrayed the soldiers, is to receive honor from you! So are the dead insulted, and the living are disheartened, when they see that death is the prize of valor, while the memory of it fades away. And, most important of all, the younger men inquire of you after what example they ought to shape their lives.
246.1
For be assured, fellow citizens, it is not our wrestling halls or the schools or our system of liberal studies alone that educate the young, but far more our public proclamations. It is proclaimed in the theater that one is crowned for virtue and nobility and patriotism, a man whose life is shameful and loathsome; a younger man, at sight of that, is corrupted. A man has been punished who is a rascal and libertine—like Ctesiphon; the rest have received instruction. A juror who has cast his vote against honor and justice goes home and proceeds to instruct his son; the boy refuses to obey, and with good reason, and he is surely justified thenceforth in calling exhortation vexation.
247.1
Cast your vote, then, not only as men who are rendering a verdict, but also as men who are in the public eye, to be called to account by the citizens who, though they are not now present, will nevertheless ask you what your verdict was. For be assured, fellow citizens, men will hold the city to be of like character with the man who is proclaimed. And it is a reproach for you to be likened, not to your fathers, but to the cowardice of Demosthenes.
247.2
How then could you escape such disgrace?
248.1
By guarding against those who arrogate to themselves the name of patriot and benefactor, but are untrustworthy in character. For loyalty and the name of friend of the people are prizes which are offered to us all, but for the most part those persons are the first to take refuge in them in speech who are farthest from them in conduct.
249.1
When, therefore, you find a politician coveting crowns and proclamations in the presence of the Greeks, bid him bring his argument back to the proof of a worthy life and a sound character, precisely as the law commands a man to give security for property. But if he has no testimony to this, do not confirm to him the praises which he seeks let your thought be for the democracy, which is already slipping through your hands.
250.1
Does it not seem to you to be an outrage if the senate-house and the people are coming to be ignored, while the letters and ambassadors come to private houses, sent hither not by ordinary men, but by the first men of Asia and Europe? And deeds the legal penalty for which is death, these deeds certain men do not deny, but acknowledge them before the people; and they read their letters to one another and compare them. And some of them bid you look into their faces as being guardians of the democracy, and others call for rewards as being saviours of the state.
251.1
But the people, discouraged by what they have experienced, as though in very dotage or declared of unsound mind, lay claim only to the name of democracy, and have surrendered the substance to others. And so you go home from the meetings of your assembly, not as from a deliberative session, but as from some picnic, where you have been given the leavings as your share.
252.1
To prove that this is not mere talk, consider my statement in the light of the following facts: There came—it pains me to call it to mind repeatedly—there came a certain disaster to the city. At that time a certain private citizen who merely undertook to sail to Samos was on the same day punished with death by the Senate of the Areopagus, as a traitor to his country. Another private citizen, who sailed away to Rhodes, was only the other day prosecuted, because he was a coward in the face of danger. The vote of the jury was a tie, and if a single vote had been changed, he would have been cast outside our borders.
253.1
Now with that let us compare what is taking place today. A politician, the man who is responsible for all our disasters, deserted his post in the field, and then ran away from the city: this man is calling for a crown, and he thinks he must be proclaimed. Away with the fellow, the curse of all Hellas! Nay, rather, seize and punish him, the pirate of politics, who sails on his craft of words over the sea of state.
254.1
And mark well the occasion on which you are casting your vote. A few days hence the Pythian games are to be celebrated and the synod of Hellas assembled. Our city is already the object of slander in consequence of the policies of Demosthenes in connection with the present critical situation. If you crown him, you will seem to be in sympathy with those who violate the general peace, whereas if you do the opposite, you will free the people from these charges.
255.1
Deliberate, therefore, not as for some foreign state, but as for your own; treat your honors, not as favours to be bestowed, but as rewards of merit; reserve your crowns for better heads and more worthy men. Deliberate, not with the help of your ears alone, but with your eyes as well, looking sharply among yourselves to see who of your number they are who propose to aid Demosthenes; whether they are comrades of his youth in the hunting-field, or companions in the gymnasium—but no, by the Olympian Zeus, that cannot be, for his time has been spent, not in hunting wild boars, and not in cultivating vigor of body, but in practising his art of hunting down men of property.
256.1
Yes, look at his imposture when he says that by his services as envoy he dragged Byzantium from Philip’s hands, and caused the revolt of the Acarnanians, and carried the Thebans away by his harangues. For he supposes that you have by this time come to such a pitch of folly that you will credit even this, as though it were the goddess Persuasion that you have been nurturing in your city, and not a slanderer!
257.1
But when at last at the close of his speech he calls forward to support his cause the men who have shared his bribes, imagine that on the platform where now I am standing as I speak, you see, drawn up in array against the lawlessness of these men, the benefactors of the state: Solon, who equipped the democracy with the best of laws, a philosopher and a good lawgiver, begging you soberly, as he naturally would, by no means to hold the words of Demosthenes as more weighty than your oaths and the laws;
258.1
and that man who assessed the tribute of the Greeks, and whose daughters our people dowered after his death, Aristeides, expressing his indignation at this mockery of justice, and asking you if you are not ashamed that whereas, when Arthmius of Zeleia transported the gold of the Medes into Hellas, although he had once resided in our city, and was proxenus of the Athenian people, your fathers were all but ready to kill him, and they warned him out of their city, and out of all the territory under Athenian control,
259.1
you now propose to crown with a golden crown Demosthenes, a man who has not indeed transported the gold of the Medes, but has received it as a bribe, and keeps it to this day. Think you not that Themistocles and those who died at Marathon and at Plataea, and the very sepulchres of your fathers, will groan aloud, if the man who admits that he has negotiated with the barbarians against the Greeks shall receive a crown?
260.1
Be ye my witnesses, O Earth and Sun, and virtue and Conscience, and Education, by which we distinguish the honorable and the base, that I have heard my country’s call, and have spoken. If I have presented the accusations well and in a manner commensurate with the crime, I have spoken according to my desire; if insufficiently, according to my ability. It remains for you, fellow citizens, in view both of what has been spoken and what is left unsaid, yourselves to give the verdict that is just and for the city’s good.

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