compelled by blows and bodily tortures, which I pray may never fall to our
lot; it is not fit to speak of them.

{52} I would gladly tell you the whole story, and show how certain persons
are working for your ruin by their policy. I pass over, however, every
point but this. Whenever any question of our relations with Philip arises,
at once some one stands up and talks of the blessings of peace, of the
difficulty of maintaining a large force, and of designs on the part of
certain persons to plunder our funds; with other tales of the same kind,
which enable them to delay your action, and give Philip time to do what he
wishes unopposed. {53} What is the result? For you the result is your
leisure, and a respite from immediate action--advantages which I fear you
will some day feel to have cost you dear; and for them it is the favour
they win, and the wages for these services. But I am sure that there is no
need to persuade you to keep the Peace--you sit here fully persuaded. It
is the man who is committing acts of war that we need to persuade; for if
he is persuaded, you are ready enough. {54} Nor is it the expenditure
which is to ensure our preservation that ought to distress us, but the
fate which is in prospect for us, if we are not willing to take this
action: while the threatened 'plunder of our funds' is to be prevented by
the proposal of some safeguard which will render them secure, not by the
abandonment of our interests. {55} And even so, men of Athens, I feel
indignant at the very fact that some of you are so much pained at the
prospect of the plunder of our funds, when you have it in your power both
to protect them and to punish the culprits, and yet feel no pain when
Philip is seizing all Hellas piecemeal for his plunder, and seizing it to
strengthen himself against you. {56} What then is the reason, men of
Athens, that though Philip's campaigns, his aggressions, his seizure of
cities, are so unconcealed, none of my opponents has ever said that _he_
was bringing about war? Why is it those who advise you not to allow it,