On the Embassy (216-220)

Do not be duped today by any of these stale tricks. You must pass judgement on the facts, according to your knowledge; you must pay no heed either to my assertions or to his, nor even to the witnesses whom he will have in waiting, with Philip as his paymaster, and you will see how glibly they will testify. You must not notice what a fine loud voice he has, and what a poor voice I have.

If you are wise, you must not treat this trial as a competition of forensic eloquence; but in regard to a dishonorable and perilous catastrophe, cast back upon the guilty the dishonor that attaches to it, after reviewing transactions that lie within the knowledge of you all. What, then, are the facts that you know and I need not recount?

If all the promised results of the peace have come true, if you confess yourselves so effeminate and so cowardly that, with no enemy within your borders, no blockade of your ports, no imperilment of your capital, with corn-prices low and every other condition as favorable as it is today,

and with foreknowledge on the assurance of your ambassadors that your allies would be ruined, that the Thebans would gain strength, that Philip would occupy the northern positions, that a basis of attack would be established against you in Euboea, and that everything that has in fact resulted would befall you, you thereupon cheerfully made the peace, by all means acquit Aeschines, and do not crown your other dishonors with the sin of perjury. He has done you no wrong, and I am a madman and a fool to accuse him.

But if the truth is otherwise, if they spoke handsomely of Philip and told you that he was the friend of Athens, that he would deliver the Phocians, that he would curb the arrogance of the Thebans, that he would bestow on you many boons of more value than Amphipolis, and would restore Euboea and Oropus, if only he got his peace,—if, I say, by such assertions and such promises they have deceived and deluded you, and wellnigh stripped you of all Attica, find him guilty, and do not reinforce the outrages, for I can find no better word,—that you have endured, by returning to your homes laden with the curse and the guilt of perjury, for the sake of the bribes that they have pocketed.