No our whole history is one series of noble contests for pre-eminence; the whole period of our existence hath been spent in braving dangers, for the sake of glory and renown. And so highly do you esteem such conduct, so consonant to the Athenian character, that those of your ancestors who were most distinguished in the pursuit of it, are ever the most favourite objects of your praise-and with reason. For who can reflect, without astonishment, upon the magnanimity of those men who resigned their lands, gave up their city, and embarked in their ships, to avoid the odious state of subjection? who chose Themistocles, the adviser of this conduct, to command their forces; and, when Lycidas proposed that they should yield to the terms prescribed, stoned him to death. Nay, the public indignation was not yet allayed. Your very wives inflicted the same vengeance on his wife. For the Athenians of that day looked out for no speaker, no general, to procure them a state of prosperous slavery. They had the spirit to reject even life, unless they were allowed to enjoy that life in freedom. Should I, then, attempt to assert, that it was I who inspired you with sentiments worthy of your ancestors, I should meet the just resentment of every hearer. No; it is my point to show, that such sentiments are properly your own; that they were the sentiments of my country, long before my days. I claim but my share of merit, in having acted on such principles, in every part of my adminiştration. He, then, who condemns every part of my administration, he who directs you to treat me with severity, as one who hath involved the state in terrors and dangers, while he labours to deprive me of present honour, robs you of the applause of all posterity. For if you now pronounce, that, as my public conduct hath not been right, Ctesiphon must stand condemned, it must be thought that you your selves have acted wrong, not that you owe your present state to the caprice of fortune.—But it cannot be ! No, my countrymen! it cannot be you have acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the liberty and the safety of all Greece. No! by those generous souls of ancient times, who were exposed at Marathon! By those who stood arrayed at Platæa! By those who encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis ! who fought at Artemisium! By all those illustrious sons of Athens, whose remains lie deposited in the public monuments! all of whom received the same honourable interment from their country; not those only who prevailed, not those only who were victorious—and with reason. What was the part of gallant men, they all performed: their success was such as the supreme Director of the world dispensed to each. : As to those public works so much the object of your ridicule, they undoubtedly demand a due share of honour and applause but I rate them far beneath the great merits of my administration. It is not with stones nor bricks that I have fortified the city. It is not from works like these that I derive my reputation. Would you know my methods of fortifying; examine, and you will find them in the arms, the town, the territories, the harbours I have secured, the navies, the troops, the armies I have raised. These are the works by which I defended Attica, as far as human foresight could defend it. These are the fortifications I drew round our whole territory, and not the circuit of our harbour, or of our city only. In these acts of policy, in these provisions for a war, I never yielded to Philip. No, it was our generals and our confederate forces who yielded to fortune. Would you know the proofs of this; they are plain and evident. Consider: what was the part of a faithful citizen? of a prudent, an active, and an honest minister? Was he not to secure Eubea, as our defence against all attacks by sea? Was he not to make Beotia our barrier on the midland side? the cities bordering on Peloponnesus our bulwark on that quarter? Was he not to attend with due precaution to the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected, through all its progress, up to our own harbour? Was he not to cover those districts which we commanded by seasonable detachments, as the Preconesus, the Chersonesus, and Tenedos ? to exert himself in the assembly for this purpose? while, with equal zeal, he laboured to gain others to our interest and alliance, as Byzantium, Abydos, and Eubea? Was he not to cut off the best and most important resources of our enemies, and to supply those in which our country was defective? And all this you gained by my counsels and my administration ;—such counsels and such an administration, as must appear, upon a fair and equitable view, the result of strict integrity; such as left no favourable juncture unimproved, through ignorance or treachery; such as ever had their due effect, as far as the judgment and abilities of one man could prove effectual. But if some superior being, if the power of fortune, if the misconduct of generals, if the iniquity of your traitors, or if all these together broke in upon us, and at length involved us in one general devastation, how is Demosthenes to be blamed? Had there been a single man in each Grecian state to act the same part which I supported in this city; nay, had but one such man been found in Thessaly, and one in Arcadia, actuated by my principles; not a single Greek, either beyond or on this side Thermopylæ, could have experienced the misfortunes of this day. All then had been free and independent, in perfect tranquillity, security, and happiness; uncontrolled, in their several communities, by any foreign power, and filled with gratitude to you and to your state, the authors of these blessings so extensive and so precious—and all this by my means. To convince you that I have spoken much less than I could justify by facts; that, in this detail, I have studiously guarded against envy, take-read the list of our confederates, as they were procured by my decrees. There are two distinguishing qualities (Athenians!) which the virtuous citizen should ever possess (I speak in general terms, as the least invidious method of doing justice to myself), a zeal for the honour and pre-eminence of the state, in his official conduct, on all occasions; and in all transactions, an affection for his country. This nature can bestow. Abilities and success depend upon another power. And in this affection you find me firm and invariable. Not the solemn demand of my person, not the vengeance of the Amphictyonic council, which they denounced against me, not the terror of their threatenings, not the flattery of their promises-no, nor the fury of those accursed wretches, whom they roused like wild beasts against me, could ever tear this affection from my breast. From first to last, I have uniformly pursued the just and virtuous course of conduct; asserter of the honours, of the prerogatives, of the glory of my country; studious to support them, zealous to advance them, my whole being is devoted to this glorious cause. I was never known to march through the city with a face of joy and exultation at the success of a foreign power: embracing, and announcing the joyful tidings to those who, I supposed, would transmit it to the proper place. I was never known to receive the successes of my own country with tremblings, with sighings, with eyes bending to the earth, like those impious men who are the defamers of the state, as if, by such conduct, they were not defamers of themselves; who look abroad, and, when a foreign potentate hath established his power on the calamities of Greece, applaud the event; and tell us we should take every means to perpetuate his power. Hear me, ye immortal gods! and let not these their desires be ratified in heaven! Infuse a better spirit into these men! Inspire even their minds with purer sentiments! This is my first prayer. Or, if their natures are not to be reformed, on them, on them only, discharge your vengeance! Pursue them both by land and sea! Pursue them even to destruction! But to us display your goodness, in a speedy deliverance from impending evils, and all the blessings of protection and tranquillity! DEMOSTHENES. AGAINST VERRES. THE time is come, Fathers! when that which has long been wished for towards allaying the envy your order has been subject to, and removing the imputations against trials, is effectually put in our power. An opinion has long prevailed (not only here at home, but likewise in foreign countries), both dangerous to you, and pernicious to the State-that in prosecutions, men of wealth are always safe, however clearly convicted. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you to the confusion, I hope, of the propagators of this slanderous imputationone, whose life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial persons; but who, according to his own reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted :-I mean Caius Verres. I demand |