331
Then do you suppose that Philip acts on an entirely different principle from yours, and gives all those handsome presents to Aeschines and his friends because they conducted their mission duly and honestly in your interest? That is not so. You have observed the reception he gave to the envoy HegesippusHegesippus [72]: recently sent to protest against Philip’s retention of Halonnesus; author of the speech On Halonnesus (Dem. 7) attributed to Demosthenes. and his colleagues. Not to mention other details, he banished by proclamation the Athenian poet Xenocleides for offering them hospitality as fellow-citizens. Such is his behavior towards your representatives when they honestly speak out what they think; those who have sold themselves he treats as he treated Aeschines and his friends. My argument requires no other witnesses and no stronger proofs; nor can anyone erase these proofs from your minds.
332
Some one came up to me just now in front of the court, and told me a very odd thing. Aeschines, he said, had prepared himself to denounce the general Chares,Chares: for thirty years an unlucky, or incompetent, commander by land and sea; politically, a friend of Demosthenes; had commanded the unsuccessful expedition sent too late for the relief of Olynthus. hoping to cajole you by his eloquent treatment of that topic. I will not lay too much stress on the observation that, whenever Chares has been brought to trial, he has been found to have acted faithfully and loyally, so far as in him lay, in your interests, though he has often failed of success by the fault of the people who do mischief for money. I will go so far as to grant for argument’s sake that every word Aeschines will utter against him is true. But even on that assumption it is absolutely ridiculous that a man in Chares’ position should be denounced by a man like Aeschines.
