On the Crown (281-285)

With such a disposition, a man’s speeches will always be patriotic: but the man who pays court to those from whom the state apprehends danger to herself, is not riding at the same anchor as the people, and therefore does not look to the same quarter for his security. I do; mark that! My purposes are my countrymen’s purposes; I have no peculiar or personal end to serve.

Can you say the same? No, indeed! Why, immediately after the battle you went on embassy to visit Philip, the author of all the recent calamities of your country, although hitherto you had notoriously declined that employment. And who is the deceiver of his country? Surely the man who does not say what he thinks. For whom does the marshal read the commination? For him. What graver crime can be charged to an orator than that his thoughts and his words do not tally? In that crime you were detected;

and yet you still raise your voice, and dare to look your fellow citizens in the face! Do you imagine that they do not know who you are? that they are sunk in such slumber and oblivion that they do not remember the harangues you made while the war was still going on, when you protested with oaths and curses that you had no dealings with Philip— that I had laid that charge against you out of private malice, and that it was not true?

But no sooner had the news of the battle reached us than you ignored all your protests, and confessed, or rather claimed, that you were Philip’s friend and Philip’s guest—a euphemism for Philip’s hired servant; for with what show of equality or honesty could Philip possibly be the host or the friend or even the acquaintance of Aeschines, son of Glaucothea the tambourinist ? I cannot see: but the truth is, you took his pay to injure the interests of your countrymen. And yet you, a traitor publicly convicted on information laid by yourself after the fact, vilify and reproach me for misfortunes for which you will find I am less responsible than any other man.

Our city owes to me, Aeschines, both the inception and the success of many great and noble enterprises; nor was she unmindful. It is a proof of her gratitude that, when the people wanted one who should speak over the bodies of the slain, shortly after the battle, you were nominated but they did not appoint you, in spite of your beautiful voice, nor Demades, although he had recently arranged the peace, nor Hegemon, nor any of your party: they appointed me. Then you came forward, and Pythocles with you—and, gracious Heavens! how coarsely and impudently you spoke!—making the very same charges that you have repeated today; but, for all your scurrility, they appointed me nevertheless.