The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

I.—"Men of Athens, Arouse Yourselves!"

The subject under discussion on this occasion, men of Athens, is not new, and there would be no need to speak further on it if other orators deliberated wisely. First, I advise you not to regard the present aspect of affairs, miserable though it truly is, as entirely hopeless. For the primary cause of the failure is your own mismanagement. If any consider it difficult to overcome Philip because of the power that he has attained, and because of our disastrous loss of many fortresses, they should remember how much he has gained by achieving alliances.

If, now, you will emulate his policy, if every citizen will devote himself assiduously to the service of his country, you will assuredly recover all that has been lost, and punish Philip. For he has his enemies, even among his pretended friends. All dread him because your inertia has prevented you from providing any refuge for them. Hence the height of arrogance which he now displays and the constantly expanding area of his conquests.

When, men of Athens, will you realise that your attitude is the cause of this situation? For you idle about, indulging in gossip over circumstances, instead of grappling with the actualities. Were this antagonist to pass away, another enemy like him would speedily be produced by your policy, for Philip is what he is not so much through his own prowess as through your own indifference.

As to the plan of action to be initiated, I say that we must inaugurate it by providing fifty triremes, also the cavalry and transports and boats needed for the fleet. Thus we should be fully prepared to cope with the sudden excursions of Philip to Thermopylæ or any other point. Besides this naval force, you should equip an army of 2,000 foot soldiers, of whom 500 should be Athenians, the remainder mercenaries, together with 250 cavalry, including 50 Athenians. Lastly, we should have an auxiliary naval contingent of ten swift galleys.

We are now conducting affairs farcically. For we act neither as if we were at peace, nor as if we had entered on a war. You enlist your soldiers not for warfare, but for religious pageants, and for parades and processions in the market-place. We must consolidate our resources, embody permanent forces, not temporary levies hastily enlisted, and we must secure winter quarters for our troops in those islands which possess harbours and granaries for the corn.

No longer, men of Athens, must you continue the mere discussion of measures without ever executing any of your projects. Remember that Philip sustains his power by drawing on the resources of your own allies.

But by adopting my plan you will at one and the same time deprive him of his chief sources of supply, and place yourselves out of the reach of danger. The policy he has hitherto pursued will be effectually thwarted. No longer will he be able to capture your citizens, as he did by attacking Lemnos and Imbros, or to seize your Paralus, as he did on his descent at Marathon.

But, men of Athens, you spend far larger sums of money on the splendid Panathenaic and Dionysian festivals than on your naval and military armaments. Moreover, those festivals are always punctually celebrated, while your preparations for war are always behindhand. Then, when a critical juncture arrives, we find our forces are totally inadequate to the emergency.

Having larger resources than any other state, you, Athenians, have never adequately availed yourselves of them. You never anticipate the movements of Philip, but simply drift after him, sending forces to Thermopylæ if you hear he is there, or to any other quarter where he may happen to be. Such policy might formerly be excused, but now it is as disgraceful as it is intolerable. Are we to wait for Philip's aggressiveness to cease? It never will do so unless we resist it. Shall we not assume the offensive and descend on his coast with some of our forces?

Nothing will result from mere oratory and from mutual recrimination among ourselves. My own conviction is that Philip is encouraged by our inertia, and that he is carried away by his own successes, but that he has no fixed plan of action that can be guessed by foolish chatterers. Men of Athens, let us for the future abandon such an attitude, and let us bear in mind that we must depend not on the help of others, but on ourselves alone. Unless we go to attack Philip where he is, Philip will come to attack us where we are.