Olynthians

they have made friendship, and promise to make alliance, with you,—you who of all men in the world would be most delighted to kill Philip’s friends or even Philip himself.

For even though you had no other basis of calculation, even though you were unable of yourselves to grasp the state of affairs, you had before your eyes the example of those people at Olynthus.

Nevertheless, although so long as they saw that he was not too powerful to be trusted, they were his allies and fought us on his account, when they found that his strength had grown too great for their confidence, they did not make a decree that whosoever should kill any man who had helped to consolidate Philip’s power should be liable to seizure in the country of their allies.

And the foot-soldiers of the Olynthians also retired into the city;

As for Agesipolis, he advanced straight from Macedonia and halted near the city of the Olynthians.

He replied, however, that he was not taking the field to do wrong, but to aid those who were suffering wrong.

For there is a certain Olynthian living here, Aristophanes by name.

For think what a combination of folly and ignorance there must be in the man who could invent such a lie against me as that about the Olynthian woman, such a lie that you shut him up in the midst of his speech.

Please call Aristophanes the Olynthian, and read his testimony, and call those who heard his story and reported it to me—Dercylus, of the deme Hagnus, the son of Autocles, and Aristeides of Cephisia, the son of Euphiletus.

The Perinthians and Byzantines with their allies realize that his aim is to deal with them even as he dealt with the Olynthians before.

It was long the common talk that the Olynthians must be made to fight Philip;

I bid you grasp these facts, men of Athens, and weigh well all the important considerations.

one military force must be dispatched to rescue their cities for the Olynthians, and a second force, both naval and military, to ravage Philip’s territory.

no words can describe how he formerly deceived the miserable Olynthians by his gift of Potidaea and many other places;

It would not have been safe in Olynthus to plead Philip’s cause, unless the Olynthian democracy had shared in the enjoyment of the revenues of Potidaea.

For of course he will deny that he is attacking us, just as he denied that he was attacking the men of Oreus, when his troops were already in their territory, or the Pheraeans before that, when he was actually assaulting their walls, or the Olynthians at the start, until he was inside their frontier with his army.

no words can describe how he formerly deceived the miserable Olynthians by his gift of Potidaea and many other places;

It would not have been safe in Olynthus to plead Philip’s cause, unless the Olynthian democracy had shared in the enjoyment of the revenues of Potidaea.

If they doubt it, let them look at Euthycrates and Lasthenes, the Olynthians, who thought they were such bosom-friends of his, and then, when they had betrayed their city, met the most ignominious fate of all.

When there was still such a city as Olynthus, were there any thieves there?

Do you not see, men of Athens, what a conspicuous and striking example is offered by those miserable Olynthians, who owe their rain, unhappy men, to nothing so much as to such conduct as I have described?

For indeed it would be monstrous if, after passing so stern a decree of censure upon the men who betrayed the Olynthians, you should have no chastisement for those who repeat their iniquity in your own midst.

On another occasion, in dealing with Potidaea, the Olynthians found its cooperation of some value;

I find that next he won the friendship of the Olynthians by capturing Potidaea, which was yours, and thus wronging you, his former allies, in presenting it to them.

That Philip has found men willing to fight him, situated on his frontiers and possessed of considerable power, above all so determined that they regard any accommodation with him as both delusive and fatal to their own country—this has all the appearance of a super-human, a divine beneficence.

Nevertheless, said I, after a brief enjoyment of other men’s territory, they have long been robbed by Philip of their own, expelled with contumely, not merely vanquished but betrayed, bought and sold by their own country-men.

Can you not imagine, I said, addressing the Messenians, how annoyed the Olynthians would have been to hear a word said against Philip in the days when he was handing over to them Anthemus, to which all the former kings of Macedonia laid claim, when he was making them a present of Potidaea, expelling the Athenian settlers, and when he had taken upon himself the responsibility of a quarrel with us a …

We could count on the Olynthians with their considerable resources;

What remains then, men of Athens, but to help them with all your power and energy?

But surely if anyone of you would postpone the necessary action till then, he must prefer to see danger at his very doors, rather than hear of it far away, and to beg help for himself, when he might be lending help to others now;

the Olynthians by Philip, the Thebans by Alexander, and the Brutians, made public slaves by the Romans:

In the course of this same summer, the Olynthians assaulted and took Mecyberna, which was garrisoned by Athenians.