On the Embassy (26-30)

but that, by recalling the assurances by which on every occasion these men stopped others from getting your attention, and that magnificent promise of Aeschines, you may realize that you have to thank him for this crowning injury,—that you were precluded from learning the truth promptly and at the proper time, being cheated by hopes and impostures and vain assurances.

That, I say, is my first and main purpose in this narration. What is my second purpose? It is one of no less importance. I want you to remind yourselves of that policy of precaution and distrust of Philip which this man deliberately chose when he was still unbribed, and to compare the confidence and friendship that afterwards sprang up so suddenly;

and then, if the fair reports he laid before you have really proved true, and if all the results have been fortunate, to admit the view that that friendship was formed for truth’s sake and in the best interests of the city; but, if the sequel has given the lie to all his predictions, if it has involved the city in much dishonor and in grievous perils, then be assured that his own sordid greed has prompted this change of front, because he has sold the truth for a bribe.

Having allowed myself to refer to those old speeches, I wish to relate first of all how these men took the business of the Phocians out of your hands. Gentlemen of the jury, I hope that none of you will regard my charges and accusations as too big for the calibre of the defendant, measuring him against the magnitude of the transactions. Reflect rather that, if any man soever, placed by you in the position he filled, and trusted to deal with the occasions that arose, had taken hire, and had sought to deceive and mislead you as Aeschines did, he would have brought about exactly the same disaster as Aeschines.

For though you often employ insignificant men for public business, it does not follow that those affairs are insignificant for which the rest of the world acknowledges our competence. Assuredly not. Again, it was Philip, of course, who really destroyed the Phocians; but these men co-operated. The question on which you are to fix your minds is whether they purposely wasted and threw away any chances that came to the embassy of saving the Phocians. I do not suggest that Aeschines destroyed the Phocians all by himself. How could he?