William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

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The Peroration is confined to this single impressive sentence. As he began his oration by beseeching the Gods to put it into the hearts of the judges to hear him impartially, so now he implores them to change the hearts of the traitors within the state, or, if it is too late for this, to annihilate them utterly as the only hope of safety to honest men.

2. μάλιστα μὲν, if possible, best of all.

3. ἐνθείητε, may you inspire even in them: this combines the wish with an exhortation (M.T. 725). In the corresponding clause with δὲ we have the imperatives ποιήσατε and δότε.— εἰ δ̓ ἄῤ, but if after all.

4. αὐτοὺς καθ᾽ ἑαυτοὺς: the strongest expression for by themselves. —ἐξώλεις καὶ προώλεις ποιήσατε, cause them to be destroyed utterly and before their time: see Shilleto's note on XIX. 172, ἐξώλης ἀπολοίμην καὶ προώλης. Westermann quotes an inscription of Halicarnassus from Keil, Sched. Epigr. p. 36: ἐξώλης καὶ πανώλης ἔστω καὶ γένος ἐκ γένους, καὶ μήτε γῆ βατὴ αὐτῷ μήτε θάλασσα πλωτή.

5. ἐν γῇ καὶ θαλάττῃ, i.e. in all their ways.

6. ἐπηρτημένων, impending: for the passive of ἐπαρτῶ see XXIII. 140, τοσοῦτος ἐπήρτηται φόβος. Cf. Aesch. I. 175, φόβους ἐπήρτησα τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις, i.e. I caused terrors to hang over them (impendere).

7. σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ, safety which cannot be shaken.

With these solemn but hopeful words of good cheer, Demosthenes leaves his case and his reputation with perfect confidence in the hands of the judges. Since the success of his burst of eloquence in §§ 51, 52, he has felt no anxiety about the judgment, and his courage has increased steadily in every stage of his argument.