THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS
Much more could I say about those transactions, yet methinks too much has been said already. The fault is my adversary's, for having spirited over me the dregs, I may say, of his own wickedness and iniquities, of which I was obliged to clear myself to those who are younger than the events. You, too, have probably been disgusted, who knew this man's venality before I spoke a word. He calls it friendship indeed; and said somewhere in his speech—"the man who reproaches me with the friendship of Alexander." I reproach you with friendship of Alexander! Whence gotten, or how merited? Neither Philip's friend nor Alexander's should I ever call you; I am not so mad—unless we are to call reapers and other hired laborers the friends of those that hire them. That, however, is not so—how could it be? It is nothing of the kind. Philip's hireling I called you once, and Alexander's I call you now. So do all these men. If you disbelieve me, ask them; or rather I will do it for you. Athenians! is Æschines, think ye the hireling, or the friend of Alexander! You hear what they say!
Philip started, men of Athens, with a great advantage. It happened that among the Greeks—not some, but all alike—there sprang up a crop of traitors and venal wretches, such as in the memory of man had never been before. These he got for his agents and supporters; the Greeks, already ill-disposed and unfriendly to each other, he brought into a still worse state, deceiving this
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