First Olynthiac (1-5)

You would, I expect, men of Athens, accept it as the equivalent of a large amount of money, if it could be made clear to you what will prove our best policy in the matters now under discussion. This then being so, you are bound to give an eager hearing to all who offer advice. For not only if someone comes forward with a well-considered plan, could you hear and accept it, but also I count it part of your good fortune that more than one speaker may be inspired with suitable suggestions on the spur of the moment, so that out of the multitude of proposals the choice of the best should not be difficult.

The present crisis, Athenians, calls on you, almost with an audible voice, to take into your own hands the control of your interests in the North, if you are really anxious to safeguard them. But, I confess, our attitude puzzles me. My own idea would be to vote an expedition at once, to make instant preparation for its dispatch, thus avoiding our previous blunder, and to send ambassadors to state our intentions and watch events.

Our chief ground for alarm is that this man, so unscrupulous, so quick to seize his opportunity, now yielding a point when it suits his purpose, now threatening—and his threats may well carry conviction—now misrepresenting us and our failure to intervene, may divert to his own purpose and wrest from us something of vital importance.

And yet, men of Athens, it is reasonable to suggest that the very thing which makes Philip’s position most redoubtable is also most encouraging for you. For the swift and opportune movements of war he has an immense advantage over us in the fact that he is the sole director of his own policy, open or secret, that he unites the functions of a general, a ruler and a treasurer, and that he is always at the head of his army; but when it comes to a composition such as he would gladly make with Olynthus, the tables are turned.

The eyes of the Olynthians are opened to the fact that they are now fighting not for glory, not for a strip of territory, but to avert the overthrow and enslavement of their fatherland. They know how he treated those Amphipolitans who betrayed their city and those Pydnaeans who opened their gates to him. And a despotism, I take it, is as a rule mistrusted by free constitutions, especially when they are near neighbors.