The Public Orations of Demosthenes, vol 2 | Page 8

indignant at the very fact that some of you are
so much pained at the prospect of the plunder of our funds, when you
have it in your power both to protect them and to punish the culprits,
and yet feel no pain when Philip is seizing all Hellas piecemeal for his
plunder, and seizing it to strengthen himself against you. {56} What
then is the reason, men of Athens, that though Philip's campaigns, his
aggressions, his seizure of cities, are so unconcealed, none of my
opponents has ever said that he was bringing about war? Why is it
those who advise you not to allow it, not to make these sacrifices, that
they accuse, and say that they will be the cause of the war? I will
inform you. {57} It is because[n] they wish to divert the anger which
you are likely to show, if you suffer at all from the war, on to the heads
of those who are giving you the best advice in your own interests. They
want you to sit and try such persons, instead of resisting Philip; and
they themselves are to be the prosecutors, instead of paying the penalty
for their present actions. That is the meaning of their assertion that
there are some here, forsooth, who want to bring about war. {58} That
is the real point of these allegations of responsibility. But this I know
beyond all doubt--that without waiting for any one in Athens to
propose the declaration of war, Philip has not only taken many other
possessions of ours, but has just now sent an expedition to Cardia. If, in
spite of this, we wish to pretend that he is not making war on us, he
would be the most senseless man living, were he to attempt to convince
us of our error. {59} But what shall we say, when his attack is made
directly upon ourselves? He of course will say that he is not at war with
us--just as he was not at war with Oreus,[n] when his soldiers were in
the land; nor with the Pheraeans,[n] before that, when he was assaulting
their walls; nor with the Olynthians, first of all, until he and his army
were actually within their territory. Or shall we still say that those who
urge resistance are bringing about war? If so, all that is left to us is
slavery. If we may neither offer resistance, nor yet be suffered to
remain at peace, no other compromise[n] is possible. {60} And further,
the issues at stake are not for you merely what they are for other states.

What Philip desires is not your subjection, but your utter annihilation.
For he knows full well that you will never consent to be his slaves, and
that even if you were willing, you would not know the way,
accustomed as you are to govern; and he knows that you will be able to
give him more trouble, if you get the opportunity, than all the rest of
the world. {61} The struggle, then, is a struggle for existence; and as
such you ought to think of it: and you should show your abhorrence of
those who have sold themselves to Philip by beating them to death. For
it is impossible, utterly impossible, to master your enemies outside the
city, before you punish your enemies in the city itself. {62} Whence
comes it, think you, that he is insulting us now (for his conduct seems
to me to be nothing less than this), and that while he at least deceives
all other peoples by doing them favours, he is using threats against you
without more ado? For instance, he enticed the Thessalians by large
gifts into their present servitude; and words cannot describe how
greatly he deceived the Olynthians at first by the gift of Poteidaea and
much beside. {63} At this moment he is alluring the Thebans, by
delivering up Boeotia to them, and ridding them of a long and arduous
campaign. Each of these peoples has first reaped some advantage,
before falling into those calamities which some of them have already
suffered, as all the world knows, and some are destined to suffer
whenever their time comes. But as for yourselves, to pass over all that
you have been robbed of at an earlier period,[n] what deception, what
robbery have been practised upon you in the very act of making the
Peace! {64} Have not the Phocians, and Thermopylae, and the
Thracian seaboard--Doriscus, Serrhium, Cersobleptes himself--been
taken from you? Does not Philip at this moment occupy the city of the
Cardians, and avow it openly? Why is it then, that he behaves as he
does to all others, and so differently to you? Because yours is the one
city in the world where