Against Ctesiphon (86-90)

After receiving such benefits at your hands, the Chalcidians did not requite you with like treatment, but as soon as you had crossed over to Euboea to help Plutarchus,[*] while at first they did pretend to be friends to you, yet as soon as we had come to Tamynae and had crossed the mountain called Cotylaeum, then Callias the Chalcidian, who had been the object of Demosthenes’ hired praises,

seeing the troops of our city shut up in a place which was difficult and dangerous, from which there was no withdrawal unless we could win a battle, and where there was no hope of succor from land or sea, collected troops from all Euboea, and sent to Philip for reinforcements, while his brother, Taurosthenes, who nowadays shakes hands with us all and smiles in our faces, brought over the mercenaries from Phocis, and together they came upon us to destroy us.[*]

And had not, in the first place, some god saved the army, and had not then your soldiers, horse and foot, showed themselves brave men, and conquered the enemy in a pitched battle by the hippodrome at Tamynae, and brought them to terms and sent them back, our city would have been in danger of the greatest disaster. For it is not ill fortune in war that is the greatest calamity, but when one hazards success against unworthy foes and then fails, the misfortune is naturally twofold.

But yet, even after such treatment as that, you became reconciled to them again; and Callias of Chalcis, obtaining pardon from you,

soon made haste to return to his natural disposition, and tried ostensibly to assemble a Euboean congress at Chalcis, but in fact to strengthen Euboea thoroughly against you, and to win the position of tyrant as his own personal reward. Then, hoping to get Philip’s help, he went to Macedonia, and travelled about with him, and was named a comrade.[*]

But having wronged Philip and run away from thence, he made haste to throw himself at the feet of the Thebans. Then abandoning them also, and making more twists and turns than the Euripus, by whose shores he used to live, he falls between the hatred of the Thebans and of Philip. At his wits’ end what to do, when an expedition had already been called out against him, he saw one gleam of hope for safety left—to get the Athenian people solemnly bound, under the name of allies, to aid him if any one should attack, a thing that was sure to happen unless you should prevent it.