On the Embassy (251-255)

Let us now turn to his remarks about Solon. By way of censure and reproach of the impetuous style of Timarchus, he alleged that a statue of Solon, with his robe drawn round him and his hand enfolded, had been set up to exemplify the self-restraint of the popular orators of that generation. People who live at Salamis, however, inform us that this statue was erected less than fifty years ago. Now from the age of Solon to the present day about two hundred and forty years have elapsed, so that the sculptor who designed that disposition of drapery had not lived in Solon’s time,—nor even his grand-father.

He illustrated his remarks by representing to the jury the attitude of the statue; but his mimicry did not include what, politically, would have been much more profitable than an attitude,—a view of Solon’s spirit and purpose, so widely different from his own. When Salamis had revolted, and the Athenian people had forbidden under penalty of death any proposal for its recovery, Solon, accepting the risk of death, composed and recited an elegiac poem, and so retrieved that country for Athens and removed a standing dishonor.

Aeschines, on the other hand, gave away and sold Amphipolis, a city which the King of Persia and all Greece recognized as yours, speaking in support of the resolution moved by Philocrates. It was highly becoming in him, was it not to remind us of Solon? Not content with this performance at home, he went to Macedonia, and never mentioned the place with which his mission was concerned. So he stated in his own report, for no doubt you remember how he said I, too, had something to say about Amphipolis, but I left it out to give Demosthenes a chance of dealing with that subject.

I rose and told you that he had never once left to me anything that he wanted to say to Philip: he would sooner give a man a share of his life-blood than a share of his speech. The truth is that, having accepted money, he could hardly confront Philip, who gave him the money on purpose that he might not restore Amphipolis. Now, please, take and read these elegiac verses of Solon, to show the jury how Solon detested people like the defendant.

What we require, Aeschines, is not oratory with enfolded hands, but diplomacy with enfolded hands. But in Macedonia you held out your hands, turned them palm upwards, and brought shame upon your countrymen, and then here at home you talk magniloquently; you practise and declaim some miserable fustian, and think to escape the due penalty of your heinous crimes, if you only don your little skull-cap,[*] take your constitutional, and abuse me. Now read.

Solon’s Elegiacs

Not by the doom of Zeus, who ruleth all,

Not by the curse of Heaven shall Athens fall.

Strong in her Sire, above the favored land

Pallas Athene lifts her guardian hand.

No; her own citizens with counsels vain

Shall work her rain in their quest of gain;

Dishonest demagogues her folk misguide,

Foredoomed to suffer for their guilty pride.

Their reckless greed, insatiate of delight,

Knows not to taste the frugal feast aright;

Th’ unbridled lust of gold, their only care,

Nor public wealth nor wealth divine will spare.

Now here, now there, they raven, rob and seize,

Heedless of Justice and her stern decrees,

Who silently the present and the past

Reviews, whose slow revenge o’ertakes at last.

On every home the swift contagion falls,

Till servitude a free-born race enthralls.

Now faction reigns now wakes the sword of strife,

And comely youth shall pay its toll of life;

We waste our strength in conflict with our kin,

And soon our gates shall let the foeman in.

Such woes the factious nation shall endure;

A fate more hard awaits the hapless poor;

For them, enslaved, bound with insulting chains,

Captivity in alien lands remains.

To every hearth the public curse extends;

The courtyard gate no longer safety lends;

Death leaps the wall, nor shall he shun the doom

Who flies for safety to his inmost room.

Ye men of Athens, listen while I show

How many ills from lawless licence flow.

Respect for Law shall check your rising lust,

Humble the haughty, fetter the unjust,

Make the rough places plain, bid envy cease,

Wither infatuation’s fell increase,

Make crooked judgement straight, the works prevent

Of insolence and sullen discontent,

And quench the fires of strife. In Law we find

The wisdom and perfection of Mankind.