On the Crown (171-175)

Now had it been the duty of every man who desired the salvation of Athens to come forward, all of you, aye, every Athenian citizen, would have risen in your places and made your way to the tribune, for that salvation, I am well assured, was the desire of every heart. If that duty had fallen upon the wealthy, the Three Hundred would have risen; if upon those who were alike wealthy and patriotic, the men who thereafter gave those generous donations which signalized at once their wealth and their patriotism.

But, it seems, the call of the crisis on that momentous day was not only for the wealthy patriot but for the man who from first to last had closely watched the sequence of events, and had rightly fathomed the purposes and the desires of Philip; for anyone who had not grasped those purposes, or had not studied them long beforehand, however patriotic and however wealthy he might be, was not the man to appreciate the needs of the hour, or to find any counsel to offer to the people.

On that day, then, the call was manifestly for me. I came forward and addressed you; and I will now ask your careful attention to the speech I then made, for two reasons: first, that you may understand that I, alone among your orators and politicians, did not desert the post of patriotism in the hour of peril, but approved myself as one who in the midst of panic could, both in speech and in suggestion, do what duty bade on your behalf; and secondly, because at the cost of a few minutes of study you may gain experience which will stand you in good stead for your policy in times to come.

What I said was this. In my judgement the present position of affairs is misunderstood by those who are so much alarmed by the apprehension that all Thebes is at the disposal of Philip. If that were true, I am quite certain that we should have heard of him not at Elatea but on our own frontiers. But I know with certainty that he has come to complete his preparations at Thebes. Let me tell you how he is situated.

He has at his command all those Thebans whom he was able to win by fraud or corruption; but he cannot by any means prevail upon those who have resisted him from the first and who are still his opponents. His present object, and the purpose for which he has occupied Elatea, is that, by an exhibit ion of his power in the neighborhood of Thebes, and by bringing up armed forces, he may encourage and embolden his friends, and overawe his adversaries, hoping that the latter will yield to intimidation or to compulsion and will so concede what at present they refuse.