The Public Orations of Demosthenes, vol 2 | Page 9

address you with impunity, even when you have been robbed of your own. In Olynthus it was only safe to take Philip's side when the people of Olynthus as a whole had shared Philip's favours, and was enjoying the possession of Poteidaea. {65} In Thessaly it was only safe to take Philip's side when the Thessalian commons had shared Philip's favours; for he had expelled the tyrants for them, and restored to them their Amphictyonic position. In Thebes it was not safe, until he had restored Boeotia to Thebes and annihilated the Phocians. {66} But at Athens--though Philip has not only robbed you of Amphipolis and the territory of the Cardians, but has turned Euboea into a fortress overlooking your country, and is now on his way to attack Byzantium--at Athens it is safe to speak in Philip's interest. Aye, and you know that, of such speakers, some who were poor are rapidly growing rich; and some who were without name or fame are becoming famous and distinguished, while you, on the other hand, are becoming inglorious instead of famous, bankrupt instead of wealthy. For a city's wealth consists, I imagine, in allies, confidence, loyalty--and of all these you are bankrupt. {67} And because you are indifferent to these advantages, and let them drift away from you, he has become prosperous and powerful, and formidable to all, Hellenes and foreigners alike; while you are deserted and humbled, with a splendid profusion of commodities in your market, and a contemptible lack of all those things with which you should have been provided. But I observe that certain speakers do not follow the same principles in the advice which they give you, as they follow for themselves. You, they tell you, ought to remain quiet, even when you are wronged; but they cannot remain quiet in your presence, even when no one is wronging them.
{68} But now some one or other comes forward and says, 'Ah, but you will not move a motion or take any risk. You are a poor-spirited coward.' Bold, offensive, shameless, I am not, and I trust I may never be; and yet I think I have more courage than very many of your dashing statesmen. {69} For one, men of Athens, who overlooks all that the city's interest demands--who prosecutes, confiscates, gives, accuses--does so not from any bravery, but because in the popular character of his speeches and public actions he has a guarantee of his personal safety, and therefore is bold without risk. But one who in acting for the best sets himself in many ways against your wishes--who never speaks to please, but always to advise what is best; one who chooses a policy in which more issues must be decided by chance than by calculation, and yet makes himself responsible to you for both--that is the courageous man, {70} and such is the citizen who is of value to his country, rather than those who, to gain an ephemeral popularity, have ruined the supreme interests of the city. So far am I from envying these men, or thinking them worthy citizens of their country, that if any one were to ask me to say, what good I had really done to the city, although, men of Athens, I could tell how often I had been trierarch and choregus,[n] how I had contributed funds, ransomed prisoners, and done other like acts of generosity, I would mention none of these things; {71} I would say only that my policy is not one of measures like theirs--that although, like others, I could make accusations and shower favours and confiscate property and do all that my opponents do, I have never to this day set myself to do any of these things; I have been influenced neither by gain nor by ambition; but I continue to give the advice which sets me below many others in your estimation, but which must make you greater, if you will listen to it; for so much, perhaps, I may say without offence. {72} Nor, I think, should I be acting fairly as a citizen, if I devised such political measures as would at once make me the first man in Athens, and you the last of all peoples. As the measures of a loyal politician develop, the greatness of his country should develop with them; and it is the thing which is best, not the thing which is easiest, that every speaker should advocate. Nature will find the way to the easiest course unaided. To the best, the words and the guidance of the loyal citizen must show the way.
{73} I have heard it remarked before now, that though what I say is always what is best, still I never contribute anything but words; whereas the city needs work of some