The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 by Demosthenes
page 35 of 218 (16%)
page 35 of 218 (16%)
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purpose come to execrate those who address you in his interest,
remembering that it is impossible to master the enemies of the city, until you punish those who are serving them in the city itself. {54} And this, before God and every Heavenly Power--this you will not be able to do; for you have reached such a pitch of folly or distraction or--I know not what to call it; for often has the fear actually entered my mind, that some more than mortal power may be driving our fortunes to ruin--that to enjoy their abuse, or their malice, or their jests, or whatever your motive may chance to be, you call upon men to speak who are hirelings, and some of whom would not even deny it; and you laugh to hear their abuse of others. {55} And terrible as this is, there is yet worse to be told. For you have actually made political life safer for these men, than for those who uphold your own cause. And yet observe what calamities the willingness to listen to such men lays up in store. I will mention facts known to you all. {56} In Olynthus, among those who were engaged in public affairs, there was one party who were on the side of Philip, and served his interests in everything; and another whose aim was their city's real good, and the preservation of their fellow citizens from bondage. Which were the destroyers of their country? which betrayed the cavalry, through whose betrayal Olynthus perished? Those whose sympathies were with Philip's cause; those who, while the city still existed brought such dishonest and slanderous charges against the speakers whose advice was for the best, that, in the case of Apollonides at least, the people of Olynthus was even induced to banish the accused. {57} Nor is this instance of the unmixed evil wrought by these practices in the case of the Olynthians an exceptional one, or without parallel elsewhere. For in Eretria,[n] when Plutarchus and the mercenaries had been |
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