that I thought fit, as a member of the Council, to introduce the envoys.
But what should I have done? Was I to propose _not_ to introduce those who
had come for the express purpose of speaking with you? or to order the
lessee of the theatre not to assign them seats? But they would have
watched the play from the threepenny seats,[n] if this decree had not been
proposed. Should I have guarded the interests of the city in petty
details, and sold them wholesale, as my opponents did? Surely not. (_To
the clerk_.) Now take this decree, which the prosecutor passed over,
though he knew it well, and read it.

{29} [_The decree of Demosthenes is read_.]

{30} Though I had carried this decree, and was seeking the good not of
Philip, but of the city, these worthy ambassadors paid little heed to it,
but sat idle in Macedonia for three whole months,[n] until Philip arrived
from Thrace, after subduing the whole country; when they might, within ten
days, or equally well[n] within three or four, have reached the
Hellespont, and saved the strongholds, by receiving his oath before he
could seize them. For he would not have touched them when we were present;
or else, if he had done so, we should have refused to administer the oath
to him; and in that case he would have failed to obtain the Peace: he
would not have had both the Peace and the strongholds as well.

{31} Such was Philip's first act of fraud, during the time of the Embassy,
and the first instance of venality on the part of these wicked men; and
over this I confess that then and now and always I have been and am at war
and at variance with them. Now observe, immediately after this, a second
and even greater piece of villainy. {32} As soon as Philip had sworn to
the Peace, after first gaining possession of Thrace because these men did
not obey my decree, he obtained from them--again by purchase--the