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Such are my proposals, for which I hope you will vote. ἡμεῖς includes friends or public officials, or both: it is noted that Demosthenes never uses the plural of himself alone. ἐπιχειροτονῆτε, ‘you put to the vote,’ attributing to the ἐκκλησία what is properly the act of its officer, the ἐπιστάτης. For this reason, and because the aorist is the regular tense after ἐπειδὴ and ἐπειδάν, I am inclined to follow Tournier in reading ἐπιχειροτονήσῃ (sc. ὁ ἐπιστάτης). The force of ἐπὶ is to give a transitive sense to an intransitive verb, as in ἐπαληθεύειν. There is no sound support for Liddell and Scott's rendering ‘sanction by vote’: also τὰς γνώμας means ‘all the proposals before you,’ i.e. my own and others which may be made; and they cannot all be sanctioned. The MSS. all support ἃν (ἃ ἂν) ὑμῖν ἀρέσκῃ; but the necessity of Dobree's emendation is shewn by the following final clause. The object of χειροτονήσετε must be τὴν ἐμὴν γνώμην, as Demosthenes would not admit the same purpose in a vote given for another proposal which might be of a very different character. ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς. Cf. Livy XXXI. 44 Athenienses quidem litteris verbisque, quibus solis valent, bellum adversus Philippum (i.e. Philip V.) gerebant.
Demosthenes: Philippics I, II, III with Introduction and Notes. Gilbert A. Davies, M.A. 1949. Cambridge University Press.
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