Answer to Philip’s Letter (21-22)

For none of you must assume that the same policy that weakened the power of Athens will suffice to restore and advance it, nor suppose that, if you are as half-hearted as before, others will be zealous in defence of your interests. Reflect, rather, what a disgrace it would be if your fathers faced many hardships and great dangers in fighting the Lacedaemonians.

but you should refuse to defend with vigor those advantages which they justly won and bequeathed to you; what a disgrace if one, with only the tradition of Macedonia behind him, so cheerfully courts danger that, in the task of extending his sway, he has been wounded in every limb on the battle-field, but Athenians, whose ancestral boast it is in war to yield to none and conquer all, should renounce, through indolence or cowardice, alike the deeds of their ancestors and the interests of their fatherland.