Aeschines

In the archonship of Chaerondas, on the sixth day of Elaphebolion, Aeschines, son of Atrometus, of Cothocidae, indicted Ctesiphon, son of Leosthenes, of Anaphlystus, before the Archon for a breach of the constitution, in that he proposed an unconstitutional decree, to wit, that Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania should be crowned with a golden crown, and that proclamation should be made i …

Among many advantages which Aeschines holds over me in this contention, there are two, men of Athens, of great moment.

If then Aeschines had confined his charges to the matters alleged in the prosecution, I should have immediately addressed my defence to the resolution of the Council;

If, then, I can establish by clear proofs that the reports of the defendant, Aeschines, were entirely untruthful, and that he prevented the Assembly from hearing the truth from me;

Never would you have consented to add to the treaty by afterthought the words and to his posterity, but for your confidence in the promises alleged by Aeschines.

but, by way of preface, I will first remind you of what doubtless most of you remember,—of the party with which Aeschines at first ranged himself in politics, and of the speeches which he thought fit to make in opposition to Philip.

In order, then, that he may lose his confidence, and that you may be instructed in advance, and that I may reply, in the presence of the jury, Demosthenes, and of all the other citizens who are standing there outside the bar, and of all the other Greeks who have taken the trouble to listen to this case—and I see that not a few are here, more in fact than have ever attended a public trial within th …

For it is obviously incumbent upon me, the complainant, to show this to you, that the praise given to Demosthenes is false, and that he never began to speak what was best, nor now continues to do what is good for the people.

I could wish, indeed, fellow citizens, that the Senate of Five Hundred and the assemblies of the people were properly conducted by those who preside over them, and the laws enforced which Solon enacted to secure orderly conduct on the part of public speakers;

For Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History says Socrates and his pupil Aeschines were the first to teach rhetoric;

Aeschines said to him, I am a poor man and have nothing else to give, but I offer you myself, and Socrates answered, Nay, do you not see that you are offering me the greatest gift of all?

Of those who succeeded him and were called Socratics the chief were Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and of ten names on the traditional list the most distinguished are Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides, Aristippus.

But what he is guilty of having done after he had reached years of discretion, when he was already a youth, and knew the laws of the state, that I will make the object of my accusation, and to that I call uponyou to give serious attention.

I have never, fellow citizens, brought indictment against any Athenian, nor vexed any man when he was rendering account of his office;

and knowing that he was liable to the accusations that you heard read a moment ago by the clerk of the court, I instituted this suit, challenging him to official scrutiny.

Come forward, then, Demosthenes, to this platform while I have the floor, and mention the name of any city of Hellas you choose from which you say the ambassadors had at that time arrived.

On our return, then, after we had rendered to the senate a brief report of our mission and had delivered the letter from Philip, Demosthenes praised us to his colleagues in the senate, and he swore by Hestia, goddess of the senate, that he congratulated the city on having sent such men on the embassy, men who in honesty and eloquence were worthy of the state.

Now up to this point I am supported by the testimony of my colleagues in the embassy, whom he has reviled and slandered from beginning to end of his accusation.

Diogenes of Sinope, having been cast out of his fatherland, in nothing differing from the very meanest of men, came to Athens, and found there still many of the companions of Socrates—Plato, that is, and Aristippus and Aeschines and Antisthenes and Euclides the Megarian;

Only I would not counsel you to read these for the most part, but Hyperides rather and Aeschines.

Two of these, against whom the charge was first formally brought, and who were really the most guilty ones, Aeschines of Lamptrae and Agesias of Acharnae, fled the camp.

This, at any rate, is the story told by Aeschines the Socratic.

But as for what Aeschines the orator says of the mother of Demosthenes, namely, that she was a daughter of one Gylon, who was banished from the city on a charge of treason, and of a barbarian woman, I cannot say whether he speaks truly, or is uttering slander and lies.

These things, then, I have been led to say on seeing that many have their hearts softened to effeminate pity by this discourse of Aeschines.

And Demosthenes came forth in public dressed in a splendid robe and wearing a garland on his head, although his daughter had died only six days before, as Aeschines says, who rails at him for this and denounces him as an unnatural father.

Then Lycius, who commanded the squadron of Greek cavalry, and Aeschines, commander of the battalion of peltasts that was with Cheirisophus, upon seeing the enemy in full flight set off in pursuit, while the rest of the Greek troops shouted to them not to fall behind, but to follow the fugitives right up to the mountain.

Then the peltasts of the Arcadian division, who were commanded by Aeschines the Acarnanian, getting the idea that the enemy were in flight, set up a shout and began to run;

Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theogenes and most of Aeschines' is?

and as Aeschines says of Cratylus, that he hissed violently and violently shook his fists.

'Does he gladly visit that place where Demosthenes and Aeschines were wont to contend with each other?

11] Aeschines the Athenian, a most eloquent man, when as a young man he had acted tragedies, took up public affairs;

And so Aeschines inveighs against Demosthenes because he sacrificed victims on the seventh day after his daughter's death.

When the indictment was called, someone filed an affidavit for postponement, declaring that Demosthenes was ill—Demosthenes, who was going about and abusing Aeschines.

It is observed in one of the speeches of Aeschines, that Philip, though at war with the Amphipolitans, could not lawfully take possession of Amphipolis, as a conquest, it being a city, which belonged to the Athenians.

Now Eupolis left two daughters, one who is the present claimant and the wife of Pronapes, and another whom Aeschines of Lusia married and who is dead, but left a son Thrasybulus, who is now of full age.

then there is Lysanias the Sphettian, father of Aeschines, who is here;

Of native Athenians there was this Apollodorus, and Critobulus and his father, and Hermogenes and Epiganes and Aeschines and Antisthenes;

Thus did Aeschines with the strokes of his oratory accuse Demosthenes, not knowing that he rather deserved a panegyric upon this occasion, when he rejected his sorrow and preferred the love of his country to the tenderness and compassion he ought to have for his relations.

But, on the other side, when I call to mind Socrates, and Plato, and Xenophon, and Aeschines, and Cebes, with an whole troop of other such men, who have approved those masculine loves, and still have brought up young men to learning, public employments, and virtuous living, I am again of another mind, and am much influenced by my zeal to imitate such great men.

and when he has done, if he does not presently come over him with an objection, but (as Aeschines directs) allows time to add, if he please, to what has been said, or to alter, or retract.

And Aeschines says that Lysicles the sheep-dealer, a man of low birth and nature, came to be the first man at Athens by living with Aspasia after the death of Pericles.

Well, then, Aspasia he begged off, by shedding copious tears at the trial, as Aeschines says, and by entreating the jurors;