Orationes 37

465. If I too have any share, men of Athens, in the right of free speech, I shall attempt to say about the present situation what I understand to be the case, begging you not to raise an uproar before you have heard the whole. Now it is a hard task to weigh purely what is to your advantage. For those who have pleaded on the one side or the other have, underlying their words, both the goodwill they feel toward those for whom they have taken their stand, and besides this the goodwill of you who share their judgement; 466. whereas those who stand apart from this and occupy the middle ground, belonging to neither party, find it given to them neither to say what is pleasant to the others, nor to tell you what you wish and expect to hear. The result is that it is far more profitable to those who have failed in their cause than to the man who has persuaded you to it: for the former still have, as friends, the very people on whose behalf they contended, while the latter has no goodwill from you. Yet for all that, though the matter carries such an awkwardness, I shall not flinch from it. For it seems to me that, now these men have spoken on either side, the man to speak on your behalf is still wanting. If, then, I prove to be that man, I shall be grateful to you on your own behalf. For those who have spoken for one of the two parties keep, even if they are defeated by their opponents, the goodwill of those for whom they took their stand; but the man who has placed himself in the middle has already deprived himself in advance of goodwill from either side, and it is unclear what he will obtain from you. It works out, then, that it is by no means an equal thing either to have chosen the interests of one of the two parties and to have you who share that judgement well-disposed, or to have stood up on your behalf and to give you offence — and, defeated, to be found to have failed in three things, but, victorious and prevailing, to come off no better than the defeated, since others instead of you belong to those whom they have chosen and made their friends. Nevertheless it seems to me shameful, and in no way statesmanlike or fair, that, while speeches are being made at Athens, men should be found to speak for the Thebans and again for the Spartans, but that those who would speak for you should be lacking. And I praise both the orators, because, having discovered many wonderful arguments against each side, they have taught me in common what verdict must be pronounced about them. For I think that even if I happened to understand nothing at all on my own account, by following what these men have said I should be able to discern the best course. But I do find this one fault with them: that, while concealing everything and seeking how they may escape notice — the one party speaking to gratify these, the other those — they have not avoided this one thing, that they make plain 467. that they are seeking to escape notice. For why need I say it? I have come forward now, not to do a favour to the Thebans and then to bid you help them, nor again, unwilling to do a favour to the Spartans, to enjoin you to run risks on their behalf. For if this posture of theirs is genuine on both sides, and one must trust them, as I for my part say one must, then my argument has room to stand clear of both. But as it is, just as though you were seeking whom you should make war upon, and not as men bound to do what is to the city's advantage, so the one party bid you make war on these, the other on those, as though, if you do not run risks, there will be a penalty. But this is what lies in the middle: to advise you, who are kindly disposed to neither side, to attend to your own affairs; than which nothing is more profitable to the city, nor anything that will better preserve those of military age, and that will be a means of safety in ships and money and everything.

They say that you and your ancestors have undertaken many dangers on behalf of many, and they speak the truth. But if you take such forethought for others that, even if it should be necessary to go to war for them, you do not shrink from it, how shall you not, far more, take forethought for your very selves to the point of not running risks out of season? For surely it is not the case that, while it is worth securing the interests of others even with dangers, it is not worth securing your own even in tranquillity. Next, if a man should wish to consider for what reason our fathers won their good repute — whether because of the mere sailing and campaigning and being lovers of danger, or because of the character of their deeds and because their pretexts were reasonable and necessary — he would not, I think, say it was because of the former. For he would be assigning to them the praise of pirates and freebooters, if he admired this and held it enviable, that they had always exposed themselves to dangers. But rather, I think, it was the warding off of the barbarians on behalf of the Greeks, and never abandoning justice through softness, that made them renowned, and reasonably so. But the present war does not have such a character that you should share in it either through necessity, or through leadership, or through the plea of some such justice. For this very first point cannot be decided — which of the two we ought to help. Why? For this one reason: that if the fact of our being entangled in many 468. affairs must be the cause of our not keeping quiet even now, this is common to both parties. So that, by the very grounds on which you would justly be on the side of one, you will be thought to do wrong in passing over the other. Next, if we must remember the wrongs we have suffered from both, we should attach ourselves to neither; and if we let the grievance go, surely we shall not let it go for the one and not for the other, but equally for both. And this being so, we shall have no party to choose, since the same just claim belongs to both. And altogether, how is it not absurd, deliberately to help destroy the other party along with those whom, as it chances, we are even bound to help on the principle of not bearing a grudge? So that, if we must help, but this is impossible toward both, the argument of not being bound to bring a charge comes down into the middle: by which we should help neither these, because we owed it to those also, nor those, because it was due to these also. So that, because we must not bear a grudge, for this very reason we must help neither. And it has come to pass — the very thing a man would have prayed for — that the Thebans and the Spartans have fallen out and given you a season of leisure and rest, while they are gripped by an interminable war: by the patronage and providence, as it seems to me, of some god over our city. For if we had wished to take vengeance on them, it would have needed effort and dangers; and if we had kept quiet, it remained for them to go unpunished. But now the matter has been so generalled by the divine power that, while you sit at home, it is open to you to take vengeance on them through their own selves. We must, then, use such an opportunity with prudence and circumspection, and look, not to see how one of them shall get the better of the other, but how you yourselves shall not be troubled by either. For indeed it is absurd that they, each party, having sent their envoys here in pursuit of their own advantage, not of yours, should be the cause of your setting their interests before your own.

Consider, then, in the name of Zeus, which side speaks better and more moderately — those who bid you take on trouble and ward off the one party and do this in the position of enemies, or he 469. who advises you neither to run risks, but to take vengeance on both and give offence to neither. And indeed, when you go out to war, it is not clear that you would meet with good faith from those who have fought alongside you; but staying at home, apart from the security you will provide for yourselves, it is plainly evident that those others too, both parties, will be grateful. For it is not for the help they did not get, when you did not join in their struggle, that each party will make complaint — for this they know to be among the impossible — but for the harm they did not experience at your hands they will both justly be grateful. For they know that this alone is left for men who have resolved to grieve neither party. How then is it not better, while crushing both, to lay up gratitude with both, than, by attaching ourselves to one, to win the friendship of neither, but to use the one as our enemies sooner and the others later? For that I am right to be suspicious of these things was shown just now about the Spartans by those who plead for the Thebans, and about the Thebans by those who plead for the Spartans. And it is clear, even apart from these men's speeches, that men who all the time before were breathing together and sharing in each other's every concern, as no single people shares in its own affairs, and who then have come to attack each other with such eagerness and force, and who think fit to have you, whom they were then wronging, as friends — that these will harbour no simple or just thought about you afterwards; especially as they have taken you up now from need, not from goodwill. And indeed, where, knowing us now to be sitting in reserve, they nonetheless come at each other, how must one not suppose that, when we have removed the one party, the survivors will turn upon us — knowing this at least, that if they overcome us no one will be left to oppose them? "But, my good sir, it is in any case just to share the risk, even if one must fall into such folly. For it is a dreadful thing to overlook the Spartans, or the Thebans, men who have done the city such and so great benefits." I think indeed that, from the very multitude of each party's benefactions, one cannot now distinguish which of the two has conferred upon us the more and the greater — on the one hand when I call to mind how kindly and zealously 470. both of them invaded here every single year, for nearly thirty years in succession; and on the other how pleasantly and easily they fortified Decelea against us, and met us in Sicily, and were everywhere present before they were summoned. For about the destruction of the Plataeans I think both would yield the point to each other. "Yes, by Zeus, but the Thebans fought not ill at Delium." And what worse will a man say of the Spartans at Amphipolis? For the rest of the benefactions I am unable, from their multitude, to recount exactly. Such are the requitals of theirs with which they have treated the city. "But the Thebans went over to the King in the old days." Yes, and the Spartans afterwards, when there stood the trophies which they raised together with us. Am I not, then, reasonably at a loss which of the two has been the cause of the greater goods to the city? "Yes, by Zeus: for the Spartans cast their vote to spare our city." That is so. "Well then, the Thebans too did not obey the Spartans when they summoned them." That is so as well. Must we, then, be grateful to the Spartans because they did not destroy the city in the same way as Plataea, and to the Thebans because they refused to invade — or rather be angry at the Spartans in return for their having brought us to the point where our fate lay in their hands, and reproach the Thebans far more, since they shared in all the earlier invasions, than think we owe gratitude to the one for saving us and to the other for once, on a single occasion, not joining the invasion?

And indeed, we ought not to feel more bitterly toward the Thebans, who brought the motion for our destruction, than toward the Spartans, who handed us over to them to vote whatever they wished about us; nor again to be more wroth at the Spartans, who marched against the Piraeus, than at the Thebans, on account of the reason for which they were left out of it — which, if one will let us examine it closely, we shall find lay in their vote's not having prevailed. But why am I splitting hairs over this? For if a man wishes most strongly to count these things as benefactions, I do not quarrel; but I shall tell you how I have judged the matter. If we must consider what good 471. they have done the city, I do not think it right to recount the benefactions of the Thebans and the wrongdoings of the Spartans, nor again the reverse, but to recount whatever good both have done. And if we must scrutinize their ill-will, we should not display the ill-will of the one party and conceal that of the other in the matters where they have done well; but since both have done both the one and the other, one of two things follows: either, as both being benefactors, we wrong neither, or, judging both ill-disposed, we help neither. And indeed, if we must render to both their deserts, let it be the lot of both, in return for the wrongs they have done us, not to obtain our help, and in return for the good they have done, not to suffer harm; and thus you will have taken good counsel toward both. But if you incline toward these or toward those, you will treat neither justly: benefiting the one party though there are wrongs they have done, and ruining the other though there are benefits they have conferred, when it is open to you to husband justice, and to take away just so much of your zeal for the one as it is wrong to let exceed your hatred of the other. And if I must say this too, I hold that we have rendered the Thebans sufficient gratitude in return for their not joining the Spartans in invading us, and for their receiving Thrasybulus — having killed Lysander and joined in doing all the rest that you know; while to the Spartans we must now render gratitude in return for their vote, by the fact that, when it lay in our power along with the Thebans to destroy them, we did not do this. And let the alliance avail the Thebans only so far as to keep you from joining the Spartans, and the good sense of the Spartans then avail only so far as to keep you from siding now with the Thebans. And this too puts them on an equality: that it is neither reasonable to help the Spartans, since they violated their pledges, nor the Thebans, since they already hold strong satisfaction from them. It is therefore neither honourable to join the one in the assault, nor just to hinder the other from being justly indignant. And I will question separately, in this way, those who have spoken for either side. Men who have pleaded for the Spartans, what is your earnest concern? Do you wish that the Thebans should not obtain the 472. alliance, and that the Spartans should suffer nothing ungenerous at our hands? I am your advocate in this. Come now again: men who have pleaded for the Thebans, do you wish that nothing should stand in the way of the Thebans, and that we should not incline toward the Spartans? I cast my vote with you. And why then have we been crying out at random and contending, when so common and just an arbiter has appeared? "But the middle course is not enough, short of making war on these at least." If not for you, that is another argument. And indeed, if of three things that are dear to each of you — one, that those whom you have chosen should suffer no harm; another, that their opponents should get no benefit; and a third, that you should make those you have preferred the greater — if, taking this third away, I hold to those other two, how then do I not share your purpose in double measure compared with the degree in which I differ from you? And I shall add that I share it precisely in those respects in which you yourselves would say you are the better men. For how is it not better to seek in common what is to the city's advantage than to attach to it already some favour or some hostility? Then the very things which each of you reproaches in the other, these you do yourselves. You do not allow the recital of the benefactions, yet you yourselves go through the deeds of those you have chosen. You make defence against the charges, and then you accuse.

I, then, men of Athens, besides doing nothing contrary to myself, am also of one vote with these men. But they, while each party speaks for its own side, are at the same time plainly speaking the contrary to the other. And besides, I do not see how there can fail to be a place for me too — me who differ with neither, and who at least, in the point on which I have agreed, must have my share. For surely the advocacy cannot come round to bidding us help both. How could it? And into the course of attacking neither, the remaining place for an advocate has fallen out; for these men, each party, forbid even themselves to campaign together with the others. My speech, then, is nothing else than, as it were, the reading-out by some copyist who has set down in sequence the discourse of each side and made one out of two. And indeed the King's affair — for you remember, I think, what was said just now — keeps us from helping either side, rather than urges us toward the one party; and what I mean 473. you will know clearly. It is surely not possible to help the Thebans on this argument, for they have turned Persian; nor the Spartans, because they too emulate the wickedness of the Persian, and it in no way befits you to be heirs of that man's villainy and faithlessness. For surely you would not say that you hate Greece, so as to seek to make it as weak as possible, like that man, nor is it tolerable that you should be seen turning your coats. But to allow those who have quarrelled to be judged among themselves is free of resentment, and not a single man would be indignant with you. Then again, the King did not come down in person, nor risk his body, but contributed to affairs from his money, being well supplied with much of it, and would send down a viceroy, since he had not a few; and this was the King's warfare — Pharnabazus, Pissuthnes, Tissaphernes, lying speeches, gold, and the like. But we, if we should incline toward one of the parties, shall suffer the very thing which that man, by these means, guarded against. For he foresaw how he might never come into danger through his own person, and for this reason wore down affairs from afar; whereas we, on the contrary, shall stake ourselves to the hazard with our bodies and our land and, so to speak, all our resources. For it is not possible for us to make war through others, nor, sitting above the war, to assist affairs, nor to know about them by hearsay, nor from a surplus, nor to share in what happens as a kind of luxury, employing our wishes in measure; but we must be present and toil together, and run no less risk than those who clashed from the start, not send a viceroy whenever we please. For even if it were a matter of money, nowhere do we have so much as to admit of alienating it for so great a need; but even if we did contribute in this manner to one of the parties, one cannot say that there is a Susa or an Ecbatana, nor that we must hide the sea away by travelling a year's journey, but it is a journey of one day, or two, for the injured party to invade and to drive and carry off our goods, so that of necessity, from this, it comes to a fight at close quarters; and this is the trouble that springs from misfortune.

I myself would have bidden you 474. succour the Spartans, on the ground that the Thebans' power is excessive, were I not persuaded that, by as much as these surpass them in number and strength, by so much will the others make up the difference in discipline. For if the two had been established on an equal footing, I should have feared for the Thebans as the weaker; but since the Thebans, and well for them, have come up to the mark, I think the war has equal holds for both: for it lies open even to the Spartans, who set out later, to pursue and overtake. What will hold the war together and make it drag on is this — that the one party, elated by their successes, seek to carry everything to the extreme, while the Spartans in turn, claiming to be superior in valour and high spirit, will not endure to admit themselves a whit inferior to these. And if we must imitate the deed of some men, there is the noble example of the Argives, who, during the war between us and these same Spartans, kept quiet and flourished in youth and in the equipment of their land and in everything, until, having laid hands on the business, they let go the prosperity they had, and their democracy was then dissolved, and again other evils followed. For wars, one may say, breed everything — dissolutions of constitutions, rivalries, harms of every kind, which a man could not even foresee; and if any men have had experience of these, we too have, and we should justly be on our guard. I hear also that our ancestors in those times withdrew from Salamis in favour of the Megarians for a certain time, and that they made it a capital decree, should any man propose to recover it, that he die. But where one must sometimes even yield up and abandon one's own possessions, and it is to one's advantage, how can it be worth our while to inherit the evils of others — and these too belonging to men who now summon us, while we should feel bitter toward those who invade Attica, if it had occurred to either of them to do this — and to fling ourselves at random into war and unsettled confusion, and that too knowing that to begin a war is easy, but to be quit of it nothing is so hard? For most men choose dangers while they are masters of themselves, but flee them once they are in the power of others; and neither of these is the act of men in their right minds. But for us our land has long been wasted, and for a long time now 475. our manhood is being destroyed, and of the money which once we gathered up onto the Acropolis so great a mass has flowed away; and the city has need of a new generation, which, just as it is coming up again, let us not maim — but while these men hate, and chafe, and march on one another, and threaten, let us sit as the stewards of the games of war, tending the city, gathering money for it, horses, triremes, setting all our affairs in order, like men who restore houses that have fallen into disrepair. And if you take my advice and hold yourselves in check, embassies will come a second time both from these and from those — they will come, be well assured, when everything appears thus marshalled and settled for you; and I think it will not be these alone, but, with the gods' help so to speak, many others also will send embassies, desiring our friendship, if you hold your ground and are willing to make use of their rivalry for the establishment of your supremacy. For surely no one says that he fears this — that the two may combine and, letting each other go, turn against us — and I say this not as though either these or those were kindly disposed to us, but because the thing admits of no reason. For in return for what, by Zeus, will they combine? Because, by Zeus, we did not join the campaign with either? Then by how much the more they are angered, by so much the more is it impossible for them to combine. For when each party is vexed that they were not able, through you, to do harm to their opponents, how will they let each other go? Or how will they be at one with each other, when each side is conscious that the other is angry, because they did not have you as allies against them?

And apart from this, they would not even, at present, be at leisure for it; but the Thebans press on, thinking it lies ready to their hand to destroy the Spartans, and would not stand off from these works in which they are now engaged, not even for the King's empire; while the Spartans would most gladly die, every man of them, if they shall get satisfaction from the Thebans — so wrathfully are they disposed toward them. And it is no wonder that men who think themselves beaten beyond their deserts 476. should be grievously affected by the shame of it. And, to speak the sum of it, their hatred of each other and their exasperation has cast a shadow over their ill-will toward the city, and, as though a cloud had come over them, they see nothing of what concerns us. But if now we fear them, lest we do them wrong, how shall we not far more reasonably fear that, if we attach ourselves to one party, the other may prevail? For now there is no danger from the survivors, even if they attempt some upheaval; for, hacked about and worn out, they will quickly find that they have won a Cadmean victory, if they contend against us who are unscathed and untouched. But if we attach ourselves to one party, then, on the one hand, should it turn out that they master affairs, we must have shared in the evils no less, so that if they later prove ungenerous we become their equals; and on the other, if affairs incline the other way, the danger is plain. As it is now, those of them who conquer conquer for us; but in that other case, through us, if so it chance, the other party will prevail. Besides, our position is not even otherwise like theirs. For the Spartans, dwelling at the farthest edge of the Peloponnese, are under much shelter from the war and its affairs; and the Thebans have been thrust beyond Cithaeron; but our city lies in the path of the war, and there will be no march for either party against the other without first invading our land — this land that lies ready to hand to be ruined. And altogether I do not see for what we shall be at war, if we will hold our ground against neither these nor those over the question of destruction; or shall we sit in the no-man's-land sparing our adversaries, when it is open to us altogether to avoid even the appearance of harming either these or those, declaring nothing in anger to the envoys, but being thus gently and moderately disposed toward both — and, if they were summoning us against others, we would readily obey, but when they summon us against each other, refusing to be present: not from any reluctance to do good to one party, but to do harm to either? These things appear reasonable to me too, however I look at them. But I fear, men of Athens, lest you prove better at setting right the affairs of others than at putting your own in good order.