Demosthenes, On The Crown, 330, Part 2

The Amphissian War, I say—which brought Philip to Elatea, which caused him to be chosen general of the Amphictyons, which ruined everything in Greece—was this man's contrivance. He is the single author of all our heaviest calamities. I protested at the time, and cried out in the assembly—"You are bringing a war, Æschines, into Attica, an Amphictyonic war"—but his packed party would not let me be heard; the rest wondered, and supposed that I was bringing an idle charge against him out of personal enmity. However, the real character of those transactions, the purpose for which they were got up. the manner in which they were accomplished, hear ye now, men of Athens, as ye were prevented then. You will see that the thing was well concerted, and it will help you much to get a knowledge of public affairs, and what craftiness there was in Philip you will observe.

Philip could neither finish nor get rid of the war with Athens, unless he made the Thebans and Thessalians her enemies. Tho your generals fought against him without fortune or skill, yet from the war itself and the cruisers he suffered infinite damage. He could neither export any of the produce of his country, nor import what he needed. He was not then superior to you at sea, nor able to reach Attica, unless the Thessalians followed him and the Thebans gave him a passage; so that, while he overcame in war the generals whom you sent out—such as they were—I say nothing about that—he found himself distressed by the difference of your local position and means. Should he urge either Thessalians or Thebans to march in his own quarrel against you, none, he thought, would attend to him: but should he, under the pretense of taking up their common cause, be elected general, he trusted partly by deceit and partly by persuasion to gain his ends more easily. He sets to work therefore—observe how cleverly—to get the Amphictyons into a war, and create a disturbance in the congress. For this he thought they would immediately want him. Now, if any of the presbyters commissioned by himself or any of his allies brought it forward, he imagined that both Thebans and Thessalians would suspect the thing, and would all be on their guard; whereas, if the agent were an Athenian and commissioned by you his opponents, it would easily pass unnoticed. An thus it turned out.

How did he effect his purpose? He hires the prosecutor. No one (I believe) was aware of the thing or attending to it, and so—just as these things are usually done at Athens—Æschines was proposed for Pylæan deputy, three or four held up their hands for him, and his election was declared. When clothed with the dignity of the state he arrived among the Amphictyons, dismissing and disregarding all besides, he hastened to execute what he was hired for. He makes up a pretty speech and story, showing how the Cirrhæan plain came to be consecrated; reciting this to the presbyters, men unused to speeches and unsuspicious of any consequences.

The mention of this man's treasonable acts brings me to the part which I have myself taken in opposition to him. It is fair you should hear my account of it for many reasons, but chiefly, men of Athens, because it would be a shame, when I have undergone the toil of exertions on your behalf, that you should not endure the bare recital of them.

When I say that the Thebans, and I may add the Athenians, were so led away by Philip's partizans and the corrupt men of either state, as to disregard and take no precaution against a danger which menaced both, and required the utmost precaution (I mean the suffering Philip's power to increase), and were readily disposed to enmity and strife with each other; I was constantly watchful to prevent it, not only because in my own judgment I deemed such vigilance expedient, but knowing that Aristophon, and again Eubulus, had all along desired to bring about that union, and, while they were frequently opposed upon other matters, were always agreed upon this. Men whom in their lifetime—you reptile!—you pestered with flattery, yet see not that you are accusing them in their graves: for the Theban policy that you reproach me with is a charge less affecting me than them, who approved that alliance before I did. But I must return.—I say, when Æschines had excited the war in Amphissa, and his coadjutors had helped to establish enmity with Thebes, Philip marched against us—that was the object for which these persons embroiled the states—and had we not roused up a little in time, we could never have recovered ourselves: so far had these men carried matters.

Now, Æschines, how would you have me describe you, and how myself, upon that day? Shall I call myself Batalus, your nickname of reproach, and you not even a hero of the common sort, but one of those upon the stage, Cresphontes or Creon, or the Œnomaus whom you execrably murdered once at Colyttus? Well; upon that occasion I the Batalus of Pæania was more serviceable to the st