Answer to Philip’s Letter (16-20)

For our prosperity is inherited from our ancestors, and is of an earlier date than the prosperity not only of Philip, but, roughly speaking, of all the kings that have ever reigned in Macedonia. Those kings actually paid tribute to Athens, but Athens never paid tribute to any power in the world. Moreover, we have a more secure claim than Philip upon the favour of heaven, in so far as our conduct has always been guided by greater regard for religion and for justice.

Why, then, was he more successful than we in the late war? I will be frank with you, men of Athens. It is because he always takes a personal share in the hardships and dangers of the campaign, never neglects a chance, never wastes any season of the year; while we—for the truth must out—sit here idle; we are always hanging back and passing resolutions and haunting the market-place to learn the latest news. Yet what more startling news could there be than that a Macedonian should insult Athenians, daring to send us such a letter as you have heard read a moment ago.

Philip’s resources include mercenary soldiers, and also, observe! certain mercenary orators here among us, men who are not ashamed to devote their lives to his service, thinking that they are carrying home his bribes, but blind to the fact that they are bartering all the interests of the State, and their own as well, for a paltry profit. We, on the other hand, make no attempt to foment a revolution in his kingdom, we decline to hire mercenaries, we shrink from taking the field.

It is not a strange thing, then, that he has gained ground at our expense in the late war, but rather that we, performing no single duty of a nation at war, think that we are going to defeat one who does everything that a grasping ambition demands.

Bearing this in mind, Athenians, and reflecting that it is not even in our power to pretend that we are at peace, for Philip has already issued a declaration of war and followed it up by active hostilities, it is necessary to spare no expense, public or private, to take the field eagerly and in full force, wherever the opportunity occurs, and to employ abler generals than before.