On the Crown (231-235)

Do you see any resemblance between this computation of results and your casting up of counters? Are we to cancel the gains to balance the losses,[*] instead of providing that they shall never be forgotten? I need not add that other nations have had experience of that cruelty which is always observable whenever Philip has got people under his heel, whereas you have been lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of that factitious humanity in which he clothed himself with an eye to the future. But I pass that by.

I will not shrink from observing that any man who wished to bring an orator to the proof honestly, and not merely to slander him, would never have laid such charges as you have alleged, inventing analogies, and mimicking my diction and gestures. The fate of Greece, forsooth, depended on whether I used this word or that, or moved my hand this way or that way!

No; he would have considered, in the light of actual facts, the means and resources possessed by the city when I entered on administration, and those accumulated by me when at the head of affairs; and also the condition of our adversaries. If I had impaired our resources, he would have proved that the fault lay at my door: if I had greatly increased them, he would have spared his slanders. As you avoided this test, I will apply it; and the jury will see whether I state the case fairly.

For resources, the city possessed the islanders—but not all, only the weakest, for neither Chios, nor Rhodes, nor Corcyra was on our side; a subsidy of forty-five talents, all collected in advance; and not a single private or trooper apart from our own army. But what was most alarming to us, and advantageous to the enemy, Aeschines and his party had made all our neighbors, Megarians, Thebans, and Euboeans, more disposed to enmity than to friendship.

Such were the means of the city: and I defy anyone to name anything else. Now consider those of our antagonist Philip. In the first place, he was the despotic commander of his adherents: and in war that is the most important of all advantages. Secondly, they had their weapons constantly in their hands. Then he was well provided with money: he did whatever he chose, without giving notice by publishing decrees, or deliberating in public, without fear of prosecution by informers or indictment for illegal measures. He was responsible to nobody: he was the absolute autocrat, commander, and master of everybody and everything.