On the Embassy (16-20)

using language for which, as Heaven is my witness, he deserves to die many times over. He told you that you ought to forget the achievements of your forefathers; that you should not tolerate all that talk about old trophies and sea-fights; and that he would draft and enact a law forbidding aid to any Greeks who had not previously brought aid to you. This speech the shameless reprobate found courage to make while the ambassadors, whom you summoned from the Greek cities at his own suggestion, before he had sold himself, were standing at his elbow and listening to what he said.

Well, you appointed him a second time, men of Athens, as an envoy to receive the oath of ratification; and I shall shortly have to tell you how he again wasted time, mishandled all the affairs of the commonwealth, and repeatedly fell out with me in regard to them when I tried to stand in his way. However, by reason of the persistent misconduct of these men, and their disobedience to instructions, we came back from the embassy for the oaths—that is the embassy which is the subject of the present scrutiny—without having realized any single one, great or small, of the advantages which were promised or expected when you approved the peace,—with nothing but deception and disappointment. Then we repaired to the Council. There are many eye-witnesses of what I am about to relate, for the Council-house was thronged with spectators.

I came forward and reported the whole truth to the Council. I denounced these men, and told the whole story, point by point, beginning with those earlier hopes created by the reports of Ctesiphon and Aristodemus, going on to the more recent orations of Aeschines at the approval of the peace, and showing to what straits they had reduced the city. There remained the question of the Phocians and Thermopylae, and we must not—such was my advice—we must not repeat our experience, and throw them overboard, and so, in reliance upon a succession of idle hopes and assurances, allow ourselves to fall into the last extremity of disaster. I convinced the Council;

but when the Assembly met, and we had to address the whole body of citizens, Aeschines took the first turn of all of us. And here I most earnestly entreat you to verify my account by your own recollections; for I am now relating transactions which ultimately brought your affairs to complete and final ruin. He utterly ignored the duty of giving a report of the doings of the embassy. He never mentioned the speeches made to the Council, or told you whether he disputed the truth of my statement. But he made such a fine speech, so full of big promises, that he carried you all away with him.

For he declared that he had completely converted Philip to the interests of Athens in respect of the Amphictyonic question and of everything else. He went through a long diatribe against the Thebans, which he said he had addressed to Philip himself, recapitulating the main points. He offered you a calculation that, thanks to his diplomacy, without leaving your homes, without any campaigning or worry, within two or three days you would hear the news of the beleaguerment of Thebes, independently of the rest of Boeotia,