DEMOSTHENES
have been insensible to your wrongs; you have fully declared that if Philip were ten times to die, it would not inspire you with the least degree of vigor. Why. then, these embassies, these accusations, all this unnecessary trouble to us?" If they should say this, what could we allege? what answer could we give? I know not.
We have those among us who think a speaker fully confuted by asking, What, then, is to be done?" To whom I answer, with the utmost truth and justness, "Not what we are now doing." But I shall be more explicit if they will be as ready to follow as to ask advice.
First then, Athenians, be firmly convinced of these truths: that Philip does commit hostilities against us, and has violated the peace (and let us no longer accuse each other of his crimes); that he is the implacable enemy of this whole city, of the ground on which this city stands, of every inhabitant within these walls, even of those who imagine themselves highest in his favor. If they doubt this, let them think of Euthycrates and Lasthenes, the Olynthians. They who seemed the nearest to his heart, the moment they betrayed their country were distinguished only by the superior cruelty of their death. But it is against our constitution that his arms are principally directed; nor, in all his schemes, in all his actions, has he anything so immediately in view as to subvert it. And there is some sort of a necessity for this. He knows full well that his conquests, however great and extensive,
131
