Olynthiacs; Philippics: Minor Public Speeches; Speech Against Leptines |
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Page 235 - I am at peace with those who are willing to obey me' ? Nor does he write so and not act accordingly. He is gone to the Hellespont; he marched formerly against Ambracia; Elis, such an important city in Peloponnesus, he possesses; he plotted lately to get Megara: neither Hellenic nor Barbaric land contains the man's ambition.
Page 61 - Boedromia, and your manliness reaches its climax when you add your thanks for what is your own. They have mewed you up in the city and entice you with these baits, that they may keep you tame and subservient to the whip. You cannot, I suppose, have a proud and chivalrous spirit, if your conduct is mean and paltry ; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit. By our Lady, I should not wonder if I got rougher treatment from you for pointing out these faults than the men who are responsible...
Page 197 - The chief object, however, of his arms and his diplomacy is our free constitution: on nothing in the world is he more bent than on its destruction. And it is in a way natural that he should act thus. For he knows for certain that even if he masters all else, his power will be precarious as long as you remain a democracy; but if ever he meets with one of the many mischances to which mankind is liable, all the forces that are now under restraint will be attracted to your...
Page 371 - or people of that sort, I should counsel you to be less proud, but since you are Athenians, I urge you to get your force ready. For it would be a disgrace, men of Athens, a disgrace to desert that post of honour which your ancestors bequeathed to you. But besides it is no longer in your power, even if you wished it, to hold aloof from Greek affairs. For you have many exploits to your credit from the earliest times, and it would be disgraceful to abandon the friends you have, while it is impossible...
Page 39 - There is an orator for chairman, with a general under him, and three hundred to do the shouting. The rest of you are attached now to one party and now to another. Hence all that you gain is that So-and-so has a public statue and So-and-so makes his fortune — just one or two men profiting at the expense of the State. The rest of you are idle witnesses of their prosperity, surrendering to them, for the sake of an easy life from day to day, the great and glorious...
Page 73 - For observe, Athenians, the height to which the fellow's insolence has soared : he leaves you no choice of action or inaction ; he blusters and talks big. according to all accounts ; he cannot rest content with what he has conquered ; he is always taking in more, everywhere casting his net round us, VOL. ID 73 DEMOSTHENES Aoiraç r//j.âs ка1 кав-q^évovs Treptorot^ ow, ш àVSpeç "AOTjraîot, ттов* a xpr¡ -пробеге; ¿TrfiSàv TÍ yéi'TjTai; eTretSav toy Ai
Page 233 - Yet neither to you, nor to the Thebans, nor to the Lacedaemonians, did the Greeks ever grant, this uncontrolled power : far from it. On the contrary, when you, or rather the Athenians of that age, seemed to treat some persons not with due moderation, it was universally resolved to take up arms; even they who had no private complaints espoused the cause of the injured. And when the Lacedaemonians...
Page 93 - TOV •rrXeiovos dpeyofievos icrcag dv €KKaXeaai9' vfj,ds, events but must forestall them, and that just as an army looks to its general for guidance, so statesmen must guide circumstances', if they are to carry out their policy and not be forced to follow at the heels of chance. But you, Athenians, possessing unsurpassed resources — fleet, infantry, cavalry, revenues — have never to this very day employed them aright, and yet you carry on war with Philip exactly as a barbarian boxes. The barbarian,...
Page 225 - If indeed Athens can remain at peace and if the choice rests with us — to take that point first — I personally feel that we are bound to do so; and if anyone says that we can, I call upon him to move a resolution and to do something and to play us no tricks; but if there is another person concerned with sword in hand and a mighty force at his back, who imposes on you with the name of peace but himself indulges in acts of war, what is left but to defend ourselves? If you choose to follow his example...
Page 419 - Now, all other wrongdoers must be considered the enemies of those only whom they have wronged, but when men overthrow free constitutions and change them to oligarchies, I urge you to regard them as the common enemies of all who love freedom. Then again, Athenians, it is right that you, living under a democracy, should show the same sympathy for democracies in distress as you would expect others to show for you, if ever — which God forbid !— you were in the same plight.