Do not be surprised, Philip, that I am going to begin, not with the discourse which is to be addressed to you and which is presently to be brought to your attention, but with that which I have written about Amphipolis.Amphipolis, a city in Macedonia near the mouth of the Strymon river, conquered and colonized by Athenians in 437 B.C. It was taken by Philip in 358 B.C., but the war with Athens was delayed until Philip seized Potidaea, 356 B.C. For I desire to say a few words, by way of preface, about this question, in order that I may make it clear to you as well as to the rest of the world that it was not in a moment of folly that I undertook to write my address to you, nor because I am under any misapprehension as to the infirmityIsocrates had now passed his ninetieth birthday. which now besets me, but that I was led advisedly and deliberately to this resolution.

For when I saw that the war in which you and our city had become involved over Amphipolis was proving the source of many evils, I endeavored to express opinions regarding this city and territory which, so far from being the same as those entertained by your friends, or by the orators among us, were as far as possible removed from their point of view.

For they were spurring you on to the war by seconding your covetousness, while I, on the contrary, expressed no opinion whatever on the points in controversy, but occupied myself with a plea which I conceived to be more than all others conducive to peace, maintaining that both you and the Athenians were mistaken about the real state of affairs and that you were fighting in support of our interests, and our city in support of your power; for it was to your advantage, I urged, that we should possess the territory of Amphipolis, while it was in no possible way to our advantage to acquire it.

Yes, and I so impressed my hearers by my statement of the case that not one of them thought of applauding my oratory or the finish and the purity of my style, as some are wont to do, but instead they marvelled at the truth of my arguments, and were convinced that only on certain conditions could you and the Athenians be made to cease from your contentious rivalry.

In the first place, you, for your part, will have to be persuaded that the friendship of our city would be worth more to you than the revenues which you derive from Amphipolis, while Athens will have to learn, if she can, the lesson that she should avoid planting the kind of coloniesSuch as Amphipolis, surrounded by warlike tribes. which have been the ruin, four or five times over, of those domiciled in them, and should seek out for colonization the regions which are far distant from peoples which have a capacity for dominion and near those which have been habituated to subjection—such a region as, for example, that in which the Lacedaemonians established the colony of Cyrene.Cyrene, in northern Africa. See Grote, iii. p. 445.