willing, you will recover your own; you will take back all that your indolence
has lost, and you will have your revenge upon Philip. {8} Do not imagine that
his fortune is built to last for ever, as if he were a God. He also has those
who hate him and fear him, men of Athens, and envy him too, even among those who
now seem to be his closest friends. All the feelings that exist in any other
body of men must be supposed to exist in Philip's supporters. Now, however, all
such feelings are cowed before him: your slothful apathy has taken away their
only rallying point; and it is this apathy that I bid you put off to-day. {9}
Mark the situation, men of Athens: mark the pitch which the man's outrageous
insolence has reached, when he does not even give you a choice between action
and inaction, but threatens you, and utters (as we are told) haughty language:
for he is not the man to rest content in possession of his conquests: he is
always casting his net wider; and while we procrastinate and sit idle, he is
setting his toils around us on every side. {10} When, then, men of Athens, when,
I say, will you take the action that is required? What are you waiting for? 'We
are waiting,' you say, 'till it is necessary.' But what must we think of all
that is happening at this present time? Surely the strongest necessity that a
free people can experience is the shame which they must feel at their position!
What? Do you want to go round asking one another, 'Is there any news?' Could
there be any stranger news than that a man of Macedonia is defeating Athenians
in war, and ordering the affairs of the Hellenes? {11} 'Is Philip dead?' 'No,
but he is sick.' And what difference does it make to you? For if anything should
happen to him, you will soon raise up for yourselves a second Philip, if it is
thus that you attend to your interests. Indeed, Philip himself has not risen to
this excessive height through his own strength, so much as through our neglect.
I go even further. {12} If anything happened to Philip--if the operation of
Fortune, who always cares for us better than we care for ourselves, were to
effect this too for us--you know that if you were at hand, you could descend
upon the general confusion and order everything as you wished; but in your
present condition, even if circumstances offered you Amphipolis, you could not