to declare the policy which he considered to be the best, particularly
when your deliberations were concerned with public affairs of great
importance. But since there are some who are led on to address you, partly
out of contentiousness, partly from causes which I need not discuss, it is
for you, men of Athens--you, the People--to dismiss all other
considerations, and both in the votes that you give and in the measures
that you take to attend solely to what you believe to be for the good of
the city. {2} Now our present anxiety arises out of affairs in the
Chersonese, and the campaign, now in its eleventh month, which Philip is
conducting in Thrace. But most of the speeches which we have heard have
been about the acts and intentions of Diopeithes. For my part, I conceive
that all charges made against any one who is amenable to the laws and can
be punished by you when you will are matters which you are free to
investigate, either immediately or after an interval, as you think fit;
and there is no occasion for me or any one else to use strong language
about them. {3} But all those advantages which an actual enemy of the
city, with a large force in the Hellespont, is trying to snatch from you,
and which, if we once fall behind-hand, we shall no longer be able to
recover--these, surely, are matters upon which our interest demands that
our plans be formed and our preparations made with the utmost dispatch;
and that no clamour, no accusations about other matters, be allowed to
drive us from this point.

{4} Often as I am surprised at the assertions which are habitually made in
your presence, nothing, men of Athens, has surprised me more than the
remark which I heard only lately in the Council--that one who advises you
ought, forsooth, to advise you plainly either to go to war or to keep the
peace. {5} Very good.[3] If Philip is remaining inactive, if he is keeping
nothing that is ours, in violation of the Peace, if he is not organizing
all mankind against us, there is nothing more to be said--we have simply