Western Civilization

OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS

Demosthenes and Isocrates Address Philip of Macedonia

Among the Greeks, the statesman Demosthenes reacted most

strongly to the growing strength and expansionary policies of

the Macedonian king Philip II. Demosthenes delivered a series

of orations to the Athenian assembly in which he portrayed

Philip as a ruthless and barbaric man. The first selection is

from Demosthenes’sThird Philippic, delivered around 341

B.C.E. Isocrates saw Philip in a different light and appealed to

him to lead both Greeks and Macedonians in a war against

the Persians. The second selection is from Isocrates’sAddress

to Philip,writtenin346B.C.E.

Demosthenes,The Third Philippic

I observe, however, that all men, and you first of all, have

conceded to him something which has been the occasion

of every war that the Greeks have ever waged. And what

is that? The power of doing what he likes, of calmly plun-

dering and stripping the Greeks one by one, and of attack-

ing their cities and reducing them to slavery. Yet your

hegemony in Greece lasted seventy-three years, that of

Sparta twenty-nine, and in these later times Thebes too

gained some sort of authority after the battle of Leuctra.

But neither to you nor to the Thebans nor to the Spartans

did the Greeks ever yet, men of Athens, concede the right

of unrestricted action, or anything like it. On the con-

trary, when you, or rather the Athenians of that day, were

thought to be showing a want of consideration in dealing

with others, all felt it their duty, even those who had no

grievanceagainstthem,togotowarinsupportofthose

who had been injured.... Yet all the faults committed by

the Spartans in those thirty years, and by our ancestors

in their seventy years of supremacy, are fewer, men of

Athens, than the wrongs which Philip has done to the

Greeks in the thirteen incomplete years in which he has

been coming to the top—or rather, they are not a fraction

of them.... Ay, and you know this also, that the wrongs

which the Greeks suffered from the Spartans or from us,

they suffered at all events at the hands of true-born sons

of Greece, and they might have been regarded as the acts

of a legitimate son, born to great possessions, who should

be guilty of some fault or error in the management of his

estate: so far he would deserve blame and reproach, yet it

could not be said that it was not one of the blood, not the

lawful heir who was acting thus. But if some slave or ille-

gitimate bastard had wasted and squandered what he had

no right to, heavens! How much more monstrous and

exasperating all would have called it! Yet they have no

such qualms about Philip and his present conduct, though

he is not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but

not even a barbarian from any place that can be named

with honor, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, from

where it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave.

Isocrates,Address to Philip

IchosetoaddresstoyouwhatIhavetosay....Iamgoing

to advise you to champion the cause of concord among the

Hellenes and of a campaign against the barbarians; and as

persuasion will be helpful in dealing with the Hellenes, so

compulsion will be useful in dealing with the barbarians....

I affirm that, without neglecting any of your own

interests, you ought to make an effort to reconcile

Argos and Sparta and Thebes and Athens; for if you

can bring these cities together, you will not find it hard

to unite the others as well....

You see how utterly wretched these states have become

because of their warfare, and how like they are to men

engaged in a personal encounter; for no one can reconcile the

parties to a quarrel while their wrath is rising; but after they

have punished each other badly,theyneednomediator,but

separate of their own accord. And that is just what I think

these states also will do unless you first take them in hand....

Now regarding myself, and regarding the course which

you should take toward the Hellenes, perhaps no more

need be said. But as to the expedition against Asia, we shall

urge upon the cities which I have called upon you to recon-

cile that it is their duty to go to war with the barbarians.

Q What are Demosthenes’s criticisms of Philip II? What

appeal does Isocrates make to Philip? What do these

documents tell you about the persistent factionalism

and communal tensions within the Greek world? In

light of subsequent events, who—Demosthenes or

Isocrates—made the stronger argument? Why?

Sources: Demosthenes,The Third Philippic. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library fromDemosthenes, Loeb Classical Library Vol. I, trans. by

J.H. Vince, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, copyrightª1930, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the

President and Fellows of Harvard College. Isocrates,Address to Philip. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library fromIsocrates, vol. 1, Loeb

Classical Library Vol. 209, translated by George Norlin, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyrightª1928, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Loeb Classical

Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Macedonia and the Conquests of Alexander 75

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

`ˆÌi`Ê܈̅Ê̅iÊ`i“œÊÛiÀȜ˜ÊœvÊ

˜vˆÝÊ*ÀœÊ*Ê

`ˆÌœÀÊ

/œÊÀi“œÛiÊ̅ˆÃʘœÌˆVi]ÊۈÈÌ\Ê