better birth, and one who need not fear comparison (not to speak it offensively) with any person of a middling estate, I and my kinsfolk, according to your knowledge and estimate, then I call upon you to consider what credit you can attach to the rest of his statements, for it is clear they were all cast in the same mould;—then I call upon you to extend to me the same favourable indulgence you have so often shown on former occasions. You are not wanting in craft, Æschines, but in this case you have shown extraordinary simplicity, to think that you could divert me from the discussion of the history and politics of the case, to follow you on to the ground of scurrilous abuse. I have not so far lost the use of my senses. I propose to examine in detail your attacks upon my policy, (mendacious ones, as I will show ;) the low ribaldry which has so incontinently discharged from you I will advert to, if it be the pleasure of the audience to hear me, hereafter. The offences alleged are numerous, some of them punishable by the extreme action of the law. The selection of this form of procedure bears the mark of private enmity, rancour, virulence, animosity, and every shade of malice; the substance of the charges, if true, is such, that no adequate reparation can be made by punishment, nor anything like it. For it is not right to preclude any man from being heard in public on any charge that may be made against him, nor to allow private feelings of dislike to influence your course: it is not justice, nor good citizenship, nor common honesty to do so if I were a public offender, and in matters of such moment as he has asserted in his tragic rehearsal of my crimes, he was bound to avail himself of the legal methods of repression, by means of information, : if it were a case for that remedy, by means of a writ of illegality, if the nature of the case required it; and so the matter would have been brought to a decision. For it is impossible that the present indictment can be brought against Ctesiphon on account of my conduct, unless proceedings might then have been taken against me. But if he had the slightest hopes of obtaining a conviction against me, he would never have proceeded against Ctesiphon. But if any one out of his long catalogue of inculpations and imputations had contained a particle of truth, there are enactments applicable to each case with the sanction of a penalty attached, there are proceedings for contesting the charge, there are forms of judgment appended to the issue. Any of these might have been set in motion, in any instance in which my delinquency was known; and had I been so dealt with by the prosecutor, there would have been no inconsistency between his accusation against me and his conduct. But, as it has happened, he has turned out of the direct and obvious course, and, having refused to make a contemporaneous investigation of the truth, he now at this distance of time brings together a pack of collected gibes, sarcasms, and invectives, and plays, with exaggerated action, the part of public prosecutor. Thus it is I who am the subject of his attacks, Ctesiphon of his indictment. His hatred of me he puts in the foreground throughout; but he will not meet me hand to hand, and so Ctesiphon must suffer. In addition, Gentlemen, to all beside that may be said in defence of Ctesiphon, this observation seems to me most fair and reasonable. Two persons implacably opposed should vent their malice on one another, and not seek out some third party to bear the brunt of it. It seems monstrous. Thus it may be seen at a glance, that the whole of the accusation has no foundation of justice or truth to support it. But I desire to go into the details, one by one, especially in respect of the untruthful attacks upon me about the Peace and the mission to Macedon; wherein he has laid to my charge the misdeeds which he in conjunction with Philocrates, committed himself. Gentlemen, it is essential and equally proper to remind you how things stood at each particular moment, that you may decide each question according to its historical bearing. For when the Phocian war was in progress-not by my means, for I had not then engaged in political life-you were in this disposition of mind, that you wished the Phocians to escape destruction (although you could not but see that they had acted ill), and you would have been glad of any misfortune which might overtake the Thebans, for they had shown anything but moderation after their success at Leuctra. All Peloponnese was divided into adverse factions: those who hated the Lacedemonians were not strong enough to sweep them away; and those whom Lacedemonian influence had established in different quarters had not full hold over the cities which they possessed. But there was everywhere that strife and turmoil which must prevail where faction is rife, and no one side predominates. This state of things could not escape the notice of Philip. He took this course. He laid out sums of money in gratuities to the dishonest and treacherous persons who were to be found in every State, and thus sowed the seed of discord and confusion. And so by errors and misconduct amongst us Philip extended his power, and planted himself everywhere among us. At last the Thebans, formerly so hard to bear with, now themselves in distress, worn out and disheartened by the length of the war, were obviously on the point of being reduced to have recourse to us. To prevent this and to prevent a general meeting of the States, Philip made voluntary overtures of peace to us, and of assistance to them. What was it that so played into his hands as to enable him almost, as it were, to circumvent you by your own consent? Was it the shall I say apathy? or something worse; or was it a mixed feeling which inspired the conduct of the other States? inasmuch as, seeing you sustaining a long and uninterrupted war in defence of the interests (as the sequel fully proved) of our common country, they never aided us with a piece of piece of money or a single man, or in any earthly manner: and you (naturally disgusted at their conduct) lent a ready ear to the overtures of Philip. This was the cause of the peace then made, not I, as the prosecutor has imputed to me; but if anyone choose to look fairly into it, he will find the crimes and corruption of His party responsible for our present condition. For the sake of the truth, I will examine the subject, point by point, with scrupulous minuteness. Let the transaction of the peace be ever so open to objection it does not touch me; the first person who brought the subject forward was Aristodemus the actor; he was followed by Philocrates of Agnus, who prepared the resolution, and along with Æschines took wages in this service. Your colleague he was, not mine, though you should burst with asserting it. Those who supported it in debate (on what motive I will not ask) were Eubulus and Cephisophon. I had nothing to do with it. And yet to such a height of impudence has he risen, that, this being the very state of the case, and the unvarnished truth, he ventures to pretend that I, forsooth, besides causing the peace, prevented its being made in unison with the other States of Greece. The atrocity of this assertion deprives me of the power of characterising it aright. Let me ask him;-when You saw this nefarious conspiracy of which we have heard-when You saw me taking out of the hands of the country her most important rights, what were your feelings? Were You filled with indignation? did You expose me at once to your fellow-citizens, and acquaint them with all You have narrated now? If I had negotiated with Philip to make away with the general action of the Greek States, it was not silence you were bound to keep, but to speak out, to testify and to denounce. You did not do so, you did nothing of the sort; no one heard your voice. No wonder-for there was no mission whatever to any Greek State; their mettle had long been tested, every one of them. There is not one single word of truth in the statement. Besides such reckless charges are, in fact, a libel on the State; for if you were despatching at the same time envoys to the Greek States to propose war, and envoys to Philip to conclude peace, this is not statesmanship but thimble-rigging. But this is not real, it is not the With what object could you call allies around you at that time? to make peace? but they all had it already; to make war? but you were yourselves in council about peace. But there is no truth in my being the introducer and author of the peace: there is no truth in any one syllable he has spoken on the subject. case. Well, now let us see after the peace was concluded, what was the line taken by each of us two respectively: in this manner it will be seen which was doing the work of Philip, which was acting in your service, and seeking the public good. What I did was to propose |