On the Embassy (121-125)

Among the many flagrant misdeeds committed by Aeschines, the singular baseness of which I think you all appreciate, there is none more flagrant, in my judgement, than the action I am about to relate, none that will more palpably prove him to have taken bribes and sold everything. When for the third time you sent your ambassadors to Philip, for the fulfilment of those magnificent expectations which Aeschines had guaranteed, you reappointed most of the former envoys, including Aeschines and me.

I immediately declined the appointment on affidavit,[*] and when certain persons were clamorous and insisted that I should go, I declared that I would not leave Athens; but the nomination of Aeschines was still valid. After the dispersal of the Assembly, the envoys met and discussed which of them should be left behind,[*] for the whole business was still in the clouds, and the future uncertain, and all sorts of conferences and discussions were going on in the market-place.

They were afraid that an extraordinary meeting of the Assembly might suddenly be convened, and that then, on hearing the truth from me, you might adopt some acceptable resolution in favor of the Phocians, and that so Philip might lose control. One friendly resolution, one gleam of hope, and the Phocians might have been saved. If you had not fallen into the trap, it was impossible—yes, impossible—for Philip to remain at Thermopylae. There was no corn in the country, as the war had prevented sowing; and the conveyance of corn was impossible so long as your fleet was there and commanded the sea. The Phocian cities were numerous, and not easy of capture, unless by protracted siege. Even if Philip had taken a city a day, there were twenty-two of them.

For all these reasons they left Aeschines at home, fearing that you might be undeceived and change your policy. Now to decline an appointment on affidavit with no reason alleged was a strange move and very suspicious. What do you mean? Are you declining the embassy? Are you not going to Macedonia to realize all those grand benefits which you announced yourself? However, he had to remain. What was to be done? He pleaded ill-health; and his brother, taking Execestus the physician with him, repaired to the council-house, made affidavit of the illness, and received the appointment himself.

But afterwards, when within five or six days the Phocians were destroyed, when Aeschines’ wages stopped as such things do, when Dercylus had returned from Chalcis and had informed you, at the assembly held at Peiraeus, of the destruction of the Phocians, when that news filled you with indignation on their account and alarm on your own, when you were resolving to bring in your women and children from the country, to reinstate the frontier fortresses, to fortify the Peiraeus, and to hold the festival of Heracles within the walls,—