If this analysis was correct, to reverse that national decline was hardly within the
power of one individual. Nevertheless, the rhetorical appeal of Demosthenes rested
upon the invocation of former greatness.
The idea that Greece will be rescued by Chalcis or Megara, while Athens eludes the
issue, is wholly wrong. It will be enough if these cities themselves survive. It is we
who must do it, we whose ancestors gained the glory and bequeathed it in the
course of great perils. And if each one of us is to sit idle and press for his own require-
ments and his own exemption from duty, first of all he will never find anyone to do
it for him, and secondly, I fear that all that we seek to avoid will be forced upon us.
(Philippic,3, 75)This is the note which he struck again in a famous self-defence, written in 330 after
the policy had failed, against an old adversary, Aeschines, who had laid responsibility
for the city’s plight at Demosthenes’ door.
If I presumed to say that it was I who inspired you with a spirit worthy of your past,
there is not a man present who might not properly rebuke me. But my point is that
these principles of conduct were your own, that this spirit existed in the city before
me, and that in its particular application I had merely my share as your servant.
Aeschines, however, denounces our policy as a whole, invokes your resentment
against me as responsible for the city’s terrors and risks, and in his anxiety to wrest
from me the distinction of an hour, robs you of glories which will endure for ever.
If you decide my policy was wrong, you will make it seem that your misfortunes are
due, not to the unkindness of fortune, but to a mistake of your own. But it is not
true, gentlemen, it is not true that you were mistaken when you took upon you that
peril for the freedom and safety of Greece. No, by our fathers, who were first to
face the danger at Marathon; by those who stood in the ranks at Plataea; by the
fleets of Salamis and Artemisium; by all those many others who lie in the sepulchres
of the nation, brave men whom Athens honoured and buried, all alike, Aeschines,
not the successful only, nor only the victorious. She did well. They have all done
what brave men may; their fate is that which God assigned.
(On the Crown, 199)The conservative appeal of Demosthenes to the highest traditions of self-respecting
freedom and political responsibility has been admired throughout the ages, though
the wisdom of his policy has been questioned. Did he overestimate the spiritual and
material resources of Athens, and exaggerate the malignancy of Philip, who seems
tohave sought understanding with Athens, and in the event did not move against her
in the hour of his victory?
78 THE GREEKS