On the Crown (91-95)

it be resolved by the People of Byzantium and Perinthus to grant to the Athenians rights of intermarriage, citizenship, tenure of land and houses, the seat of honor at the games, access to the Council and the people immediately after the sacrifices, and immunity from all public services for those who wish to settle in our city; also to erect three statues, sixteen cubits in height, in the Bosporeum, representing the People of Athens being crowned by the Peoples of Byzantium and Perinthus; also to send deputations to the Panhellenic gatherings, the Isthmian, Nemean, Olympian, and Pythian games, and there to proclaim the crown wherewith the Athenian People has been crowned by us, that the Greeks may know the merits of the Athenians and the gratitude of the Byzantines and the Perinthians.

Read also of the crowns awarded by the inhabitants of the Chersonese.

(The Decree of the Chersonesites is read.)

The peoples of the Chersonesus inhabiting Sestus, Elaeus, Madytus, and Alopeconnesus, do crown the Council and People of Athens with a golden crown of sixty talents’ value,[*] and erect an altar to Gratitude and to the People of Athens, because they have been a contributory cause of all the greatest blessings to the peoples of the Chersonesus, having rescued them from Philip and restored their fatherland, their laws, their freedom, and their temples; also in all time to come they will not fail to be grateful and to do them every service in their power. This decree was passed in Confederate Council.

Thus my considered policy was not only successful in delivering the Chersonese and Byzantium, in preventing the subjugation of the Hellespont to Philip, and in bringing distinction to the city, but it exhibited to mankind the noble spirit of Athens and the depravity of Philip. For he, the ally of the Byzantines, was besieging them in the sight of all men: could anything be more discreditable and outrageous?

But you, who might with justice have found fault with them for earlier acts of trespass, so far from being vindictive and deserting them in their distress, appeared as their deliverers, and by that conduct won renown,—the goodwill of the whole world. Moreover all know that you have awarded crowns to many politicians; but no one can name any man—I mean any statesman or orator—except me, by whose exertions the city itself has been crowned.

I wish to show you that the attack Aeschines made on the Euboeans and the Byzantines by raking up old stories of their disobliging conduct towards you, was mere spiteful calumny,—not only because, as I think you all must know, those stories are false, but because, even if they were entirely true, the merits of my policy are not affected,—by relating, with due brevity, two or three of the noble actions of your own commonwealth; for the public conduct of a state, like the private conduct of a man, should always be guided by its most honor able traditions.