Peace of Antalcidas, though it was still appealed to, when convenient, as a
charter of liberty, also came to be disregarded. But there was always a sense of
the possibility or the danger of provoking the great king to exert his strength,
or at least to use his wealth, to the detriment of some or all of the Greek
states; though at the moment of which we are speaking (about 355) the Persian
Empire itself was suffering from recent disorders and revolutions, and the king
had little leisure for interfering in the affairs of Greece.

It was to the department of foreign and inter-Hellenic affairs that Demosthenes
principally devoted himself. His earliest political speeches, however, were
composed and delivered in furtherance of prosecutions for the crime of proposing
illegal legislation. These were the speeches against Androtion (spoken by
Diodorus in 355) and against Leptines (in 354). Both these were written to
denounce measures which Demosthenes regarded as dishonest or unworthy of
Athenian traditions. In the former he displays that desire for clean-handed
administration which is so prominent in some of his later speeches; and in the
prosecution of Leptines he shows his anxiety that Athens should retain her
reputation for good faith. Both speeches, like those of the year 352 against
Timocrates (spoken by Diodorus), and against Aristocrates (spoken by Euthycles),
are remarkable for thoroughness of argument and for the skill which is displayed
in handling legal and political questions, though, like almost all Athenian
forensic orations, they are sometimes sophistical in argument.

The first speech which is directly devoted to questions of external policy is
that on the Naval Boards in 354; and this is followed within the next two years
by speeches delivered in support of appeals made to Athens by the people of
Megalopolis and by the exiled democratic party of Rhodes. From these speeches it
appears that the general lines of Demosthenes' policy were already determined.
He was in opposition to Eubulus, who, after the disastrous termination of the
war with the allies, had become the leading statesman in Athens. The strength of