Orationes 38
Orationes 38 Imperial Aelius Aristides GreekNo one could wonder, men of Thebes, that Philip does what he is wont; for he has subdued far more by deceit than by arms, in which hope he is here now against you too. And the people of the Athenians, keeping the rank that is wonted and ancestral to them, have sent us here — if you are unaware, to teach you in what straits you stand; if you understand it, to offer help and, by Zeus, to show it together with our words. But it is your part not to prove worse than fortune, nor, while making sovereign over you whatever the occasion can establish against you, to throw away beforehand the things that are a counterweight to these, and seek them afterward. One thing, then, Philip has done well in admitting — that these many wonderful things which the envoys just now recounted were done for his own sake, not for yours; for he would not be stopping here, nor asking what he now asks. And you, if you mean to repay equal for equal, we do not grudge it, but let what seems good to him be also just for you; but if the favour is to be slavery, I think I recognize neither the one nor the other — neither what such great good he has done you, nor what so great fault you find in your own selves, that you should willingly pay so great a penalty. Consider straightway, from this very thing, the difference between the two embassies. For Philip has sent his, asking you to help him; but we have come ourselves, willing to help you, if you accept us. And that we are doing nothing new nor outside the customary, recall one thing of those known to all. For when first you were rid of the Lacedaemonians, after that long friendship and intimacy, which not you, but they, dissolved,
having conceived the same design about you as Philip, then of all the Greeks none — neither, I say, of those who inhabit Europe nor of those who inhabit Asia — was with you, except us here; so far has the present case advanced. For then, when you came to us, we obeyed; but now we have come of our own accord, having taken — or, if you will, taken in advance — the rank of counsellors from you. For the surplus of fears for all Greece seems to us so great that we make it a matter for content, if a man, even when further asked, shall be able to persuade the survivors to be willing to be saved. And this we recognize not now for the first time, but even at the campaign of the barbarian long ago we roused up all whom we could, and were not ashamed to make request on behalf of the common interest.
Now, toward those who think the same as we, a brief speech suffices, and perhaps this much, that we have left behind the cavalry and the hoplites; but toward those who as yet consider nothing of the future, but are still amid the deceit and the hopes, this one thing I say, that I hold the very speeches a harm to affairs, unless one will reduce them to the least possible; then I shall go through what the occasion requires. If Philip were being tried among you first, it would be a piece of good fortune for the other Greeks; but this would perhaps hold danger for you, who had not foreseen nor seen his character outside. But now let the stumblings of the others be reckoned among your good fortune, and, taking away the speeches from both sides, trust his deeds. Would that such examples among the Greeks from one another did not exist, but that all should inhabit their cities in quiet with prosperity. But not to think it right to have been instructed even by what we have seen would be utter calamity. There was a time when there were Olynthians. How did Philip treat these? More humanely, I think, than was for their good, while they were in need. And who could tell all? But they held Anthemus of his territory, which before they could not even set foot upon. And he made so much
- account of his friendship toward them, more than of his enmity toward us, that, having robbed us of Potidaea, he gave it to them, and made the danger his own, but the prize theirs. What, then, did this profit the Olynthians? Did it bear them any fair fruits? But he who before gave what no one asked, this is the man who afterward left them nothing — but, instead of giving them Potidaea then, he did not hand it to others but did away with it altogether; and instead of stopping his greed at Olynthus, he took two-and-thirty cities besides, and made the Scythian desolation for the Greeks on Thrace. And yet, by the gods, at how great a price do you think the Olynthians, when they were perishing and suffering those many dreadful things, would have bought it to have been allowed to recognize these things for themselves sooner and to take better counsel about their affairs? I, for one, think at any price. This, then, it seems, was not granted them, but at the same moment they recognized it and had perished. But you, while you are masters, use the example, and do not be willing to become to others yourselves what they were. But whenever Tilphossaeum and the land of the Phocians seem to you some wonderful gain, then set against it your own city and land and temples and tombs and customs and reputation and all such things as one might name, and judge, and ask yourselves whether they are not worth more; of all of which, if you look to those gains, it is in store for you to be deprived. For it is strange not only not to be grateful to those who lend, but not even to be willing to approach them first, if they do this at high interest, yet to think that to those who do a favour for such an end, and ask back so much in return, neither hatred nor distrust should be owed from all. And consider, likening your own affairs to those of the Olynthians, except for fortune. For do not think that, because the names of the places are different, the facts therefore differ. But did he give them gifts, as to you, or did he not? Yes, and many. And did it profit them in the end, or did it not profit them?
Come now, consider this too — how the Olynthians, in turn, were disposed toward us in those times. As Philip would most have prayed — and I shall add, has disposed them: they distrusted us,
they hated us, they could not endure even our name. What then? When they were endangered against their benefactor, and an Iliad of woes had encompassed them, who came to them for their preservation? None, neither before us nor after us. But here was shown most finely the difference between our nobility and his greed. For we, judged by them in the place of enemies, when they needed true friends, were present first and alone; while he, who gave everything less than he wished, this man took everything together and held it — themselves, their arms, their city, their land. And through Philip they have been made desolate, but through our virtue those who escaped are saved at Athens. Are we not, then, better enemies than Philip a friend, and ought not more gratitude to be owed us for our enmity than to Philip for his benefactions? And indeed it cannot even be said that you will show Philip some such act of kindness, for which, against his existing nature, he would spare you. For neither do those outside marvel at your worth, nor would you surpass the Amphipolitans and Pydnaeans, of whom the one sacrificed to him as to a god, and the others could show a temple of his father. But nonetheless he cast out the one, when he was sated with them, and butchered the others in the temple of his father, still swearing oaths, and the slaughters overtook the truces. And yet do not think that he is so harsh and grudging toward those outside Pylae and those settled on Thrace — who have ever lived debating whose they ought to be — but that of you, who are reckoned together with us, the Greeks, and of whom the rulers of the Greeks once could not endure a single blow, he will make no account, but would gladly see you faring better than is to his advantage. You are not conscious in yourselves of anything so mean as that you should either not fear Philip, or not believe that this purpose against you is in him; but I think you should judge him your enemy from the same grounds from which you judge him ours. For he knows that we should in no way submit in the place of slaves, and, supposing you to be others of the same kind, he reasonably
holds you enemies. If, then, he is not even coming against us, but is lying in this respect, believe the other point — that he will do nothing against you; but if it is not likely that he should be disbelieved in what he has admitted, by the same token he is convicted also in what he denies. So that, of two things, one: if you will not make war, you will be slaves; but if you will not think it right to be slaves, you will make war. And indeed, if humane dealing ever prevents his plots, then there is no war for him against us now either, since he once released captives to us and made friendship; but if greed is the dreadful thing, what need is there to speak of the Phocians? For it was not on behalf of your interests that he destroyed the Phocians — no — but for the sake of a base for his own affairs; nor that he might make you stronger, but that he might make the Greeks weaker in common — unless he will say that he has destroyed two-and-thirty cities on Thrace on your behalf, and has occupied all Thessaly with garrisons and tetrarchies, that you may keep your constitution exactly, and attacked Megara on your behalf, and snatches Euboea away because of you, and is intriguing in the Peloponnese and making slaughters, that you may run the least possible danger, and harasses the Paeonians and Triballians and those beyond the Bears and makes trouble for all men, that the city of the Thebans may flourish and nothing fearful ever beset it from beyond the border — and now comes against the Athenians on your behalf; very plainly, as is shown from the rest.
What, then, does he wish, that he does not confess the part against you, but hides it? Most of all, men of Thebes, Philip has done away with heralds from wars, and uses them only as far as the theatre. For he thinks, I suppose, that it is great folly, in the gymnastic contests not to announce the wrestling-throws beforehand nor what one must guard against, but in the equipping of war and the marshalling of affairs to send ahead the warner, as though afraid on behalf of his enemies. And so he did not announce to the Olynthians what he wished, until, like some disease, he had already laid hold of their very bodies; and going against the Phocians
he sent ahead the reputation of coming to them as a friend. If, then, he had been able even now to approach you in silence, he would have valued this most highly; but since it was necessary for him to become visible, marching through Boeotia, in part he is overcome by necessity, and in part he uses his nature, and says he is coming against us — not that he may declare the war against us, but that he may conceal the one against you, thinking it no small difference whether he contends against both, or against one of the two. And if this too should besides be added for him, that those against whom he ought to run his risk, being with us, should come against us with him, he thinks it a wonderful invention. For these reasons he has admitted the one and denies the other. And besides this, he supposed that if he should grapple openly with you by the law of war, we should come and prevent it, but if he should set the cities apart, he should hold you before you could lift a hand against him, and then be arrayed against us alone. And he does this not now for the first time, but throughout all time and through all affairs, that the cities may never come to be in the same place; since, when the affairs about the Phocians were then advancing in time, foreseeing that you would use us as allies as you were wont, he struck both away, throwing peace before us, and receiving you as friends. Then, indeed, both of us were led astray in old-fashioned and silly ways; but now let us show ourselves not worse than he at reckoning. But nonetheless he asks gratitude of you for his greed, himself having done away with all the gratitude. For he who, in return for the little he then gave, now comes simply to take everything from you, what gratitude has he left himself with you? Just as if he should attempt to ask the Phocians for gratitude for what they have suffered. For it is not because he destroyed the Phocians that you ought therefore to think him well-disposed toward you, but because he destroyed the Phocians against you, and now wishes to treat you as he then treated them — and to be on your guard, and not, because of those things, to concede these also, but, from these present things, to hate those too.
But indeed, as for the accusations and slanders which the envoys used against us, consider that, first, they fall foul of themselves, if they speak the truth. For if we have anything to accuse one another of, these would be differences of ours toward one another, not of the man who has no part in the charges. So that it was not fitting for him to send to incite you, but for you, if you thought you ought to bear a grudge, to summon both him and all whom you could against us. But when you yourselves know how to be temperate toward yourselves, how will you heed him who stirs up trouble? — unless someone should say this, that toward your own selves you will bear it gently, but on his behalf you will bear a grudge, and that too in matters in which you, not he, were outraged, if one must say anything of these things. Then consider this too, that you may not at the same time appear angry, and to have taken satisfaction from your own selves, and to have become so much worse than we toward yourselves, that we have come ready to join in saving your affairs, while you — but why should one say the ill-omened word? For if Philip is coming on account of all that you ever blamed, and on account of which they say you ought to be indignant, let us grant that these men have something to say; but if it is through his being unable to restrain himself, let Python show whether you have condemned even your own selves so far that, by bearing a grudge against your own selves, you would rightly be thought to be taking good counsel. And apart from this, I think all would agree that for us, being Greeks and of the same race, to quarrel with one another over empire and precedence is without reproach and among customary things, but that one wholly alien ought to be admitted to no anger nor strife; but in the same way as if two brothers were disputing precedence among themselves, this one thing at least they would recognize alike, if some stranger and one in no way connected were using force, to shut him out with the doors held in common — so in Hellenic affairs let none of those outside have a hold upon our own secret matters — for thus it is right to speak of them — but let us reckon that the wars of the Greeks against one another and their charges resemble
factions, and that one must most of all, if possible, look that it shall not come about, but if it does, be rid of it most quickly; but that the war against the barbarians, and those of old ill-disposed, is by nature proclaimed, and that these are not diseases and a passing growth of occasions, but that the bounds of these stand immortal, as when a debt is owed someone. And, on the whole, if it is permitted to bear a grudge — it is not just, but use it, if you wish; but if the occasion is stronger than such small-mindedness, let us on the other side use Philip himself as a counsellor, and reckon that he has come as a kind of involuntary reconciler. For us, if nothing else, one might at least blame this common thing; but Philip nowhere leaves any room for the man who shall tell how he has been treated by him to make so bad a defence about these matters — such is his practice.
And indeed, if in the very midst of the occasions of your grievances you were going to be thoughtless toward us, perhaps there would be some pardon; but now consider what things they are teaching you — things neither just nor profitable to you. For if, when we were at enmity with one another, you restrained yourselves, but when everything has in deed been dissolved by us and we are here willing to campaign together, then you will be angry, see that you do not do the opposite of what you wish. For you will not seem to bear a grudge against wrongdoers, but to be angry at those who have chosen to do good. And indeed you would thus use both contrary to what is needful — preferring the man who comes against you to those who come for you, and again treating us, who are friends, more harshly than enemies. And of all things the strangest — that the charges are common from both sides, but the anger is among you alone — and that too while the army is not at the Girdle nor in the borderlands of Attica and Boeotia, but in the borderlands of Phocis and your own, in the very forecourt of Thebes, so that I shudder now for your gates. Why, then, when the matter is yours, have we come in alarm? Most of all, I think, because some good fortune is general for both cities; then, because it would have been most shameful in deed
to have resolved to save you, but in word to shrink from teaching what is needful, especially when there is an expectation that he will set his hand to distorting the truth, which we have found to be so. Against his embassy, then, I think, there was need of envoys of ours, but against his army an army comes to meet it. And if anyone thinks it strange that we have come in fear on your behalf, let him consider this too, that it is strange that Philip comes against us on account of your grievances. Do not, then, of two strange things, make the one that is against you strong, and destroy the one that is for your preservation. And how should we not have been ashamed, if lately we rescued the Byzantines from danger, and the Perinthians and the Chersonesites, and further the Euboeans and the Chalcidians — so far as in us lay — being able to say of all these that they had not dealt most finely with us, but should look on while you, for the sake of cold charges, were endangered in all you have? — you, than whom who is more familiar to us among all the Greeks? And I wonder at Python, if he should think it right for you to remember the unpleasant things, which from both sides have come about involuntarily, but should not think to make account of the things tending to intimacy and trust through all time, so many in number — and that too while all men know that the cities have been on fair terms with one another in their needs. How we received Oedipus, and how Dionysus, setting out from your land, consorts with Icarius, and the gift he gave, and how Heracles was initiated, first of strangers, and how we first founded a temple to him, and how we championed his children, and all such things, we shall let pass; but of things whose witnesses are still living: this, that when our people met misfortune, we, coming hither, held Thebes as a fatherland, and that when afterward the Lacedaemonians bade you join in invading Attica, you all voted it down; and this, that when again the Lacedaemonians marched against you, we were so far from campaigning with them that, our city being unwalled, we took the field and, conquering in battle with you, freed
Boeotia — under the compulsion of no alliance, but having chosen by deliberate purpose to do you good. And again, when the Peace of Antalcidas came about, and Phoebidas seized the Cadmea, we both received your exiles and, when there was need of arms, were present with our whole force, and were not too late in coming, and let the Lacedaemonians go under truce; and one could tell ten thousand things, how the cities have been good fortune to one another.
Not only, then, have we city to city very many ties to one another, but also of private friendships it has happened that those between you and us are the strongest. For what is more renowned than the comradeship of Heracles and Theseus, or what more in season for the Greeks? — who wore the same equipment, and, being of the same mind, tamed the earth. And when, indeed, Heracles needed a friend, Theseus, bringing him to Athens, restores him. As surely as we need now, O Zeus and Poseidon and all you gods — now, in very truth, now — their union and practice and ambition. For I think that neither the campaign against the Amazons nor any other war would they have chosen, before they had together helped to destroy this one head, of which neither the Isthmus is untried nor any nation, but both land and sea fail it as it plunders. Now, then, those men are the stewards of the contest of the war, but we have been chosen out of all as the contestants. Why, then, do we not imitate our founders? A fine partnership, indeed, men of Thebes, we formed, that one which I mentioned a little before, when we did not dread the Lacedaemonians, rulers of land and sea; yet there has been no day more necessary than this coming one, nor a better occasion, nor one in which cities and heroes and the gods themselves more needed to combine. An insolent man, setting out from the pit of the earth by the ill fortune of the Greeks — or rather, bred for his own — has been revelling now a long time intolerably, doing away with cities, transposing constitutions, exchanging exiles, trampling into the affairs of the Greeks, as though he had taken Greece on overdue mortgage; and no one prevents
or even stirs, but, as though these things were happening up at the cataracts, or about the Red Sea, or belonged to all men rather than to us, a wonderful sleep and idleness has been poured over all, and just like the strange things in the histories, so we hear of what is happening, marvelling at the events, not seeking how it shall stop; and all the affairs of the Greeks have become as in a Euripus, turned up and down night and day, and a wonted hearing of evils holds us — "Philip in the strait, Philip in Megara, Arcadia is sick, the Chalcidians have perished, Thessaly has been enslaved, he is besieging Byzantium, he has taken Elis" — there has come to be a Homeric catalogue of the Greeks being plundered. And though so much wealth and so many persons and places have been lost, and all men's all has been despoiled, nothing of all these is more fearful, nor over which one might more groan, than that he has despoiled our judgments and our reckoning, and has used so great an abundance of drugs and sorcery that he has persuaded all to work everything for him against themselves — as though they would profit if they perish; and there has come to be a rivalry among the Greeks as to who shall come before another to him; and there is left to us only so much as there is to those who, stumbling from a blow or some other evil, walk on, for whom the falling down is foreseen, but the still being to come — this is their strength. And he, like a typhoon or a fiery whirlwind falling on, drives all affairs from top to bottom with a bright aegis, letting nothing pass, bringing to some arms, to others words, all but compelling all to rise up. But nonetheless no one has yet obeyed him in this; rather, as though a mist or gloom had laid hold of everything, we can recognize neither our own selves nor him, but, knowing the future, yet not wishing to seem to know it, willingly we await the necessities. And if some other portent had occurred, such as in the heaven, or earthquakes or winds beyond measure had held us, all ought to have been afraid, and to have called one another together, and to have gone as envoys to Delphi and Dodona and to
Amphiaraus about preservation; but with Philip running rampant now so long a time, and stirring Greece from its foundations, and overrunning so much land as no wave has yet flooded, there is no speech, no assembly, no fitting prayer, no Hellenic inquiry; but, as though wrapped in a cloud, or wearing that strange cap of the poets, plain in doing, but invisible in suffering, he goes about playing the demagogue with the Greeks, searching out everything, finding out everything — if anything unpleasant has been done by anyone toward his neighbour, if anyone has uttered but a word — slandering all in turn, conversing with the Greeks as with children. But what is this to you, you evil Amphictyon? All these things are one — the dreadful Philip running riot. Who else, then, shall prevent these things? Whose, men of Thebes, must this windfall be? To us the gods have brought these necessities as a gift of hospitality.
Consider, then, also about the old charge, how finely you cleared yourselves of it, saying that the city was not its own master, but that those who controlled affairs medized. Yet to these words it does not follow that you should now receive Philip. But either those things too must be thought to be false, or for these no argument is left. That it is not in your power, then, even if you wish, to err, consider. Now Philip asks one of two things, either to join in invading, or to let him through. Letting him through, then, you have alike betrayed us, and yet do not gratify him as much as he wishes. So that both the blame from us is incurred, and that from him is added. If, then, he settles his affairs against us, against whom will he go first, except you? Or is this plain even if he had nothing to blame — by Zeus — but if he enters as well-disposed and a friend, and having entered holds and does not let go the city — and we know in what manner he took Pherae, and apart from Pherae we know in what manner Phoebidas held this Cadmea here — if, then, as he formerly, going as though against Olynthus, thought it right not to let slip the first windfall, so now this man too, before coming into Attica,
thinks it right to hold Thebes, will you summon him before the Greeks, or what will you do? And if, having set the cities apart and shown you openly letting him through in the open, he turns against you yourselves first, where will you put your own case? If, then, we shall ward you off on equal terms, we shall not help you; but if we shall no more bear a grudge, how will you not come to the extremity of shame? Well, then. To let him through, for these reasons, is simply not possible; and it remains to join in the invasion and to share the danger, if indeed he is to trust you or you him. Consider, then, whether you would be better, running the risk on behalf of your own slavery and that of the other Greeks, or, the danger being present, using it on behalf of freedom, both your own and the others'. And I think that, if you should join in invading, there are more hopes for you, if defeated, to become free, than if victorious. For we have already passed over grievances to many, but Philip is master of the same men of whom he is friend. And indeed you will make the alliance with us, surely, on equal and like terms, as always; but Philip one must follow. And how much this differs, learn. For if we, having sent — may it not be, nor will it be — should say this much to Philip, that we have resolved to follow him and serve whatever he commands, is there anyone left on whose behalf he will think fit for us to make war? Not one could be named. Therefore you throw away no small part, but you will take counsel for your own selves so much worse than for us, that for us, if nothing else, at least the contending for freedom is left, but you must first have consented to be slaves, before you are arrayed against us. Then will you lay upon your own selves from the start what is the limit of erring for men who make war, and mix the dishonours of betrayal with the dangers of war? By no means; but, considering with yourselves that, in choosing Philip, you choose a barbarian man, and one separated by nature — even if he should burst dancing out the Pythian games — and besides this a tyrant and an avenging fiend
of Greece, and now come against you; but in making us your own, you make your own, first, Greeks and of the same race, then near neighbours and intimate of old and now alarmed on your behalf — use the occasion, considering, in addition to all the rest, the very posture of each embassy. We, then, bred in freedom and laws like yours, have come ourselves ready to be arrayed on behalf of these things, and thinking it right that you should be others such. But of these men, some have come as betrayers of their own fatherlands, a shameful example to all the Greeks, while others, sent off under compulsion, would most gladly, if they were masters of a nod, show you the very opposite. And yet, whether would you be better, rescuing the Thessalians into freedom, or these men, persuading you to embark with them into slavery? Consider this too: if Epaminondas were alive, which of these would he have counselled you — whether to help enslave the Greeks to Philip and to live as a part of an appendage to this man, who once was a hostage among you, or the opposite of these? Now, then, in his stead, having reverence for his glory and for the battle at Leuctra, having prayed to Zeus the Liberator and to Heracles the Averter of Evil and to Apollo the Pythian and Ismenian and to the common gods and heroes of the Greeks, think it right that you yourselves be seen with us; and let us try to leave to those after us examples of virtue not worse than we ourselves received from those before. Thus, if anyone is added from the campaign, let us take courage, let us press on; but if anyone thought that it belongs only to those who sell their fatherlands to take courage, he judged not rightly.