Answer to Philip's Letter
It must now be
clear to all of you, Athenians, that Philip never concluded a peace with you,
but only postponed the war; for ever since he handed Halus
1 over to the Pharsalians, settled the Phocian question,
and subdued the whole of
Thrace,
coining false excuses and inventing hollow pretexts, he has been all the time
practically at war with
Athens,
though it is only now that he confesses it openly in the letter which he has
sent.
[
2]
I shall, however, try to prove to you
that you must not quail before his power nor offer a half-hearted resistance,
but must enter the war with an unsparing provision of men, money, and
ships—in a word, with all your resources. For first, men of
Athens, you may reasonably expect that your
mightiest allies and supporters will be those gods whose sanction he has flouted
and whose name he has taken in vain through his unjust violation of the peace.
[
3]
Then again, he has at last come to the end
of his policy of deception and his lavish promises of future benefit, which
before helped him to power. The Perinthians and Byzantines with their allies
realize that his aim is to deal with them even as he dealt with the Olynthians
before.
[
4]
The Thessalians recognize that he is
determined to be their despot and not the president of a confederacy. The
Thebans suspect him, because he keeps a garrison at
Nicaea and has stolen into the Amphictyonic
Council, and because he attracts to his court the embassies of the Peloponnesian
powers and secures their allies for himself. Thus of his old friends some are
even now his irreconcilable foes, others are no longer his hearty supporters,
while all regard him with suspicion and dislike.
[
5]
Then too—nor is this a matter of small importance—quite
recently the satraps of
Asia Minor sent
a force of mercenaries and compelled Philip to raise the siege of Perinthus; but
today their hostility is confirmed, the danger, if he reduces
Byzantium, is at their very doors, and
not only will they eagerly join the war against him,
[
6]
but they will prompt the king of
Persia to become our paymaster and he is richer than all the
rest together, and his power to interfere in
Greece is such that in our former wars with
Sparta, whichever side he joined, he
ensured their victory, and so, if he sides with us now, he will easily crush the
power of Philip.
[
7]
Now, admitting these great advantages, I cannot deny that Philip has used the
peace to forestall us in occupying many fortresses, harbors, and other points of
vantage; only I observe that when a league is knit together by goodwill, and
when all the allied states have the same interests, then the coalition stands
firm; but when, like Philip's, it is based on treachery and greed and maintained
by fraud and violence, then on some slight pretext or by some trifling slip it
is instantly shattered and dissolved.
[
8]
Moreover,
men of
Athens, frequent reflection
has taught me that not only do Philip's alliances end in suspicion and
hostility, but also the various parts of his own kingdom are not united by such
satisfactory and intimate ties as people imagine. For although in a general way
the Macedonian power carries some weight and value as an auxiliary, yet by
itself it is weak and, in face of such a stupendous task, even negligible;
[
9]
and Philip, by his wars and his campaigns
and by all those activities to which his greatness might be attributed, has
really made it a less trusty weapon to his own hand. For you must not imagine,
men of
Athens, that his subjects
share his tastes; you must rather reflect that he wants glory, but they
security. He cannot gain his end without danger; they, thinking of children,
parents, and wives left at home, are not so eager to court ruin and danger every
day to oblige him.
[
10]
From this you can gauge the
feelings of the great body of the Macedonians towards Philip; while as regards
his courtiers and captains of his mercenaries you will find that, though they
have some repute for valor, they live in greater fear than those who have none;
for these have only the enemy to fear, but those dread the sycophants and
slanderers of the court more than a pitched battle.
[
11]
These, again, have the whole army to support them when they face the
hostile ranks, but those both have to bear the chief burden of the war, and,
apart from that, it is their peculiar misfortune to fear the temper of their
king. Moreover, if a common soldier is at fault, his punishment is proportioned
to his deserts, but it is just when the officers are most successful that they
are most exposed to unmerited curses and gibes.
[
12]
And all this no one in his senses would refuse to believe; for those who have
resided at his court agree that Philip is so jealous that he wants to take to
himself all the credit of the chief successes, and is more annoyed with a
general or an officer who achieves something praiseworthy than with those who
fail ignominiously.
[
13]
This being so, how is it
that they have so long remained loyal to him? Because, men of
Athens, at present his prosperity
overshadows all such shortcomings, for success has a strange power of obscuring
and covering men's failings; but if he trips, all his weakness will be clearly
revealed. For it is with the political as with the bodily constitution.
[
14]
As long as a man is in good health, he is
conscious of no unsoundness here or here, but when his health breaks down, every
part is set a-working, be it a rupture or a sprain or any organ that is not
perfectly healthy. So with all monarchies and oligarchies; as long as their arms
prosper, few detect their weaknesses, but when they stumble, even as Philip must
stumble beneath a burden that is greater than he can bear, then all their
disadvantages are plain for all men to see.
[
15]
Now if any of you, Athenians, seeing
Philip's good fortune, considers him a formidable and dangerous opponent, he is
exercising a prudent forethought. For fortune is indeed a great weight in the
scale; I might almost say it is everything in human affairs. And yet in many
respects our good fortune is to be preferred to Philip's.
[
16]
For our prosperity is inherited from our ancestors,
and is of an earlier date than the prosperity not only of Philip, but, roughly
speaking, of all the kings that have ever reigned in
Macedonia. Those kings actually paid tribute
to
Athens, but
Athens never paid tribute to any power in
the world. Moreover, we have a more secure claim than Philip upon the favour of
heaven, in so far as our conduct has always been guided by greater regard for
religion and for justice.
[
17]
Why, then, was he
more successful than we in the late war? I will be frank with you, men of
Athens. It is because he always
takes a personal share in the hardships and dangers of the campaign, never
neglects a chance, never wastes any season of the year; while we—for
the truth must out—sit here idle; we are always hanging back and
passing resolutions and haunting the market-place to learn the latest news. Yet
what more startling news could there be than that a Macedonian should insult
Athenians, daring to send us such a letter as you have heard read a moment ago?
[
18]
Philip's resources include mercenary
soldiers, and also, observe! certain mercenary orators here among us, men who
are not ashamed to devote their lives to his service, thinking that they are
carrying home his bribes, but blind to the fact that they are bartering all the
interests of the State, and their own as well, for a paltry profit. We, on the
other hand, make no attempt to foment a revolution in his kingdom, we decline to
hire mercenaries, we shrink from taking the field.
[
19]
It is not a strange thing, then, that he has gained ground at our
expense in the late war, but rather that we, performing no single duty of a
nation at war, think that we are going to defeat one who does everything that a
grasping ambition demands.
[
20]
Bearing this in mind, Athenians, and reflecting that it
is not even in our power to pretend that we are at peace, for Philip has already
issued a declaration of war and followed it up by active hostilities, it is
necessary to spare no expense, public or private, to take the field eagerly and
in full force, wherever the opportunity occurs, and to employ abler generals
than before.
[
21]
For none of you must assume that
the same policy that weakened the power of
Athens will suffice to restore and advance it, nor suppose
that, if you are as half-hearted as before, others will be zealous in defence of
your interests. Reflect, rather, what a disgrace it would be if your fathers
faced many hardships and great dangers in fighting the Lacedaemonians,
[
22]
but you should refuse to defend with vigor
those advantages which they justly won and bequeathed to you; what a disgrace if
one, with only the tradition of
Macedonia behind him, so cheerfully courts danger that, in the
task of extending his sway, he has been wounded in every limb on the
battle-field, but Athenians, whose ancestral boast it is in war to yield to none
and conquer all, should renounce, through indolence or cowardice, alike the
deeds of their ancestors and the interests of their fatherland.
[
23]
Not to detain you
longer, I say that we must be prepared for war, and must urge the Greek states,
by our action rather than by our appeals, to join our alliance; for all words
divorced from action are futile, especially words from Athenian lips, in
proportion as we are reputed to be more ready of speech than all other
Greeks.