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That agreement, men of Athens, I urge you to keep in the way that I have explained, and I would confidently assure you, with the authority that my ageDemosthenes would be about fifty at the probable date of this speech. confers, that we shall at once be exercising our undoubted rights, and also making the safest use of those opportunities which impel us to secure our interests. For, indeed, there is this clause appended to the agreement, if it is our wish to share in the common peace. But the words if it is our wish mean also the opposite—if it is ever our duty to abandon our disgraceful submission to the dictates of others, or even our forgetfulness of those high ideals, which from time immemorial we have cherished in greater measure than any other people.This vague and clumsy sentence admits of no satisfactory interpretation. The ἀλλάof the Mss. conveys no meaning, and it will be noticed that παύσασθαιis apparently constructed both with a participle and with an infinitive. The Greek needs, but hardly deserves, emendation. Therefore, if you approve, Athenians, I will now propose that, as the agreement directs, we declare war on the transgressors.
