On the Embassy (56-60)

Testimony

You find, therefore, that it was not Philocrates and I who entered into partnership in the negotiations for the peace, but Philocrates and Demosthenes. And I think that the proofs which I have presented to you in confirmation of what I have said, are sufficient. For as to the report we made, you yourselves are my witnesses; but I have presented to you my colleagues in the embassy as witnesses of what was said in Macedonia and of what took place in the course of our journey. But you heard and remember the accusation which Demosthenes made a few moments ago. He began with the speech which I made in the assembly on the question of the peace.

and, utterly untruthful in this part of his accusation, he complained bitterly about the occasion of that speech, saying that it was delivered in the presence of the ambassadors whom the Greeks had sent to you; for you had invited them in order that if you must go on with the war, they might join you against Philip, and that if peace should seem the better policy, they might participate in the peace. Now see the man’s deceit in a momentous matter, and his outrageous shamelessness.

For in the public archives you have the record of the dates when you chose the several embassies which you sent out into Hellas, when the war between you and Philip was still in progress, and also the names of the ambassadors; and the men themselves are not in Macedonia, but here in Athens. Now for embassies from foreign states an opportunity to address the assembly of the people is always provided by a decree of the senate. Now he says that the ambassadors from the states of Hellas were present.

Come forward, then, Demosthenes, to this platform while I have the floor, and mention the name of any city of Hellas you choose from which you say the ambassadors had at that time arrived. And give us to read the senatorial decrees concerning them from the records in the senate-house, and call as witnesses the ambassadors whom the Athenians had sent out to the various cities. If they testify that they had returned and were not still abroad at the time when the city was concluding the peace, or if you offer in evidence any audience of theirs before the senate, and the corresponding decrees dated at the time of which you speak, I leave the platform and declare myself deserving of death.

Now read also what is said in the decree of the allies,[*] in which it stands expressly written, Whereas the people of the Athenians are deliberating with regard to peace with Philip, and whereas the ambassadors have not yet returned whom the people sent out into Hellas summoning the cities in behalf of the freedom of the Hellenic states, be it decreed by the allies that as soon as the ambassadors return and make their report to the Athenians and their allies the prytanes shall call two meetings of the assembly of the people according to law, and that in these meetings the Athenians shall deliberate on the question of peace; and whatever the people shall decide, be it voted that this decision stand as the common vote of the allies. Now please read the decree of the synod.