First Olynthiac (2-4)

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.