40
Though the letter is addressed to you, it contains, as you hear, a distinct intimation intended for his own allies: I have done this against the wishes and the interests of the Athenians. Therefore, if you Thebans and Thessalians are wise, you will treat them as your enemies, and put your confidence in me. That is the meaning conveyed, though not in those words. By such delusions he carried them off their feet so completely that they had no foresight nor any inkling whatever of the sequel, but allowed him to take control of the whole business; and that is the real cause of their present distresses.
41
And the man who was hand-in-glove with Philip, and helped him to win that blind confidence, who brought lying reports to Athens and deluded his fellow-citizens, was this same Aeschines who to day bewails the sorrows of the Thebans and recites their pitiful story, being himself guilty of those sorrows, guilty of the distresses of the Phocians, guilty of all the sufferings of every nation in Greece. Yes, Aeschines, beyond a doubt, you are sincerely grieved by that tale of woe, you are wrung with pity for the poor Thebans, you, who hold estates in Boeotia, you, who till the farms that once were theirs; it is I who exult—I, who was at once claimed as a victim by the perpetratorthe perpetrator: Alexander, who, in the year 335, destroyed Thebes, and then demanded from Athens the surrender of Demosthenes. See Introd. p. 4. of those wrongs!
42
However, I have digressed to topics that will perhaps be more appropriately discussed later on. I return to my proof that the misdeeds of these men are the real cause of the present situation.
42
When you had been deluded by Philip through the agency of the men who took his pay when on embassy and brought back fictitious reports, and when the unhappy Phocians were likewise deluded, and all their cities destroyed, what happened?
