On the Crown (289-292)

Read for his benefit the epitaph, which the state resolved by public vote to inscribe upon their monument. Even from these verses, Aeschines, you may learn something of your own callousness, and malignity, and brutality. Read.

Epitaph

Here lie the brave, who for their country’s right

Drew sword, and put th’ insulting foe to flight.

Their lives they spared not, bidding Death decide

Who flinched and lived, and who with courage died.

They fought and fell that Greece might still be free,

Nor crouch beneath the yoke of slavery.

Zeus spoke the word of doom; and now they rest

Forspent with toil upon their country’s breast.

God errs not, fails not; God alone is great;

But man lies helpless in the hands of fate.

Do you hear this admonition, that it is the gods alone who err not and fail not? It attributes the power of giving success in battle not to the statesman, but to the gods. Accursed slanderer! why do you revile me for their death? Why do you utter words which I pray the gods to divert to the undoing of your children and yourself?

Among all the slanders and lies which he launched against me, men of Athens, what amazed me most was that, when he recounted the disasters that befell our city at that time, his comments were never such as would have been made by an honest and loyal citizen. He shed no tears; he had no emotion of regret in his heart; he vociferated, he exulted, he strained his throat. He evidently supposed himself to be testifying against me, but he was really offering proof against himself that in all those distressing events he had had no feeling in common with other citizens.

Yet a man who professes such solicitude, as he has professed today, for our laws and constitution, whatever else he lacks, ought at least to possess the quality of sympathizing both with the sorrows and the joys of the common people; and, in choosing his political principles, he ought not to range himself with their enemies. But that is clearly what he has done, when he declares that I am responsible for everything, and that the city has fallen into trouble by my fault.