be our answer? What shall we say, Athenians? I do not see what we can say.

{38} Now there are some who imagine that they confute a speaker, as soon
as they have asked him the question, 'What then are we to do?' I will
first give them this answer--the most just and true of all--'Do not do
what you are doing now.' {39} But at the same time I will give them a
minute and detailed reply; and then let them show that their willingness
to act upon it is not less than their eagerness to interrogate. First, men
of Athens, you must thoroughly make up your minds to the fact that Philip
is at war with Athens, and has broken the Peace--you must cease to lay the
blame at one another's doors--and that he is evilly-disposed and hostile
to the whole city, down to the very ground on which it is built; {40} nay,
I will go further--hostile to every single man in the city, even to those
who are most sure that they are winning his favour. (If you think
otherwise, consider the case of Euthycrates[n] and Lasthenes of Olynthus,
who fancied that they were on the most friendly terms with him, but, after
they had betrayed their city, suffered the most utter ruin of all.) But
his hostilities and intrigues are aimed at nothing so much as at our
constitution, whose overthrow is the very first object in the world to
him. {41} And in a sense it is natural that he should aim at this. For he
knows very well that even if he becomes master of all the rest of the
world, he can retain nothing securely, so long as you are a democracy; and
that if he chances to stumble anywhere, as may often happen to a man, all
the elements which are now forced into union with him will come and take
refuge with you. {42} For though you are not yourselves naturally adapted
for aggrandizement or the usurpation of empire, you have the art of
preventing any other from seizing power and of taking it from him when he
has it; and in every respect you are ready to give trouble to those who
are ambitious of dominion, and to lead all men forth into liberty. And so
he would not have Freedom, from her home in Athens, watching for every