Allies of Athens

Now on the adjournment of that session of the assembly, Philip’s ambassadors proceeded to administer the oaths to your allies in your army-building.

in that assembly Critobulus of Lampsacus came forward and said that Cersobleptes had sent him, and he demanded that he should be allowed to give his oath to the ambassadors of Philip, and that Cersobleptes be enrolled among your allies.

In the first place, of the ten ambassadors (or rather eleven, counting the representative of the allies, who was with us) not one was willing to mess with Demosthenes, when we set out on the second embassy, nor even to lodge at the same inn with him as we journeyed, whenever it could be avoided, for they had seen how he had plotted against them all on the previous embassy.

Persuasion we used in arranging that Hellenotamiae should be appointed at Athens to control the joint funds, that the allied fleet should assemble in our own harbor, and that such states as possessed no ships should be supplied with them by us:

She forbids us to place the least trust in Sparta, although all our allies are joining us in making peace;

A war for their recovery needs the support of the king of Persia and our allies, and they refuse that support.

but when the great battle against the Lacedaemonians was fought near Corinth, and when the party in that city determined after the battle not to admit our soldiers within their walls, but to send heralds to greet the Lacedaemonians, these men, though they saw that Athens had lost the day and that our enemies were holding the pass, refused to betray us or to take steps for their own individual safe …

Whereas Conon, it runs, freed the allies of Athens.

The Allies crowned the People for valor and righteousness, or The Allies dedicated to the Goddess of Athens a prize of victory;

If they were asked whether, in their opinion, the greater injury is done to the commonwealth by tillers of the soil, who live frugally, but, because of the cost of maintaining their children, or of household expenses, or of other public burdens, are behindhand with their taxes, or by people who plunder and squander the money of willing taxpayers and the revenue that comes from our allies, I am sur …

In the first place, that your allies may be kept loyal, not by maintaining garrisons among them, but by making their interests identical with yours;

The total revenues of the State, including your own resources, now squandered on unnecessary objects, and the contributions of your allies, must be shared by each citizen equally, as pay by those of military age and as overseers’ fees, or whatever you like to call it, by those beyond the age-limit;

Have we not squandered our private estates, our public funds, and the contributions of our allies?

Have they not by ill-treating our allies, by lodging false complaints against them, by stripping the best of them of their possessions—have they not so disaffected them that they have revolted against us and craved the friendship and alliance of the Lacedaemonians?