[5]
For in the first place, Athenians, when it was proposed to take advantage of
the unrest in Euboea1 and side with Plutarchus in a war that
would bring us more expense than glory, I was the first and indeed the only
speaker to oppose it, and I narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by those who
induced you for trifling gains to commit many serious errors. It was not long
before you incurred disgrace and suffered indignities2 such as no men
have ever received from those whom they have helped, and so you realized the
baseness of those to whom you then gave ear and the wisdom of the advice you
received from me.
1 Through Philip's intrigues a Macedonian party had been formed in the cities of Euboea. Plutarchus, the ruler of Eretria, applied to Athens for help against a rising. The request was supported by Eubulus and Midias, but opposed by Demosthenes. A force was sent under the command of Phocion and won a battle, but Plutarchus proved himself a traitor and was expelled from Eretria.
2 According to the Scholiast, Plutarchus seized some of the Athenian troops and compelled Athens to ransom them for 50 talents.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.