41
You see that, before he got his peace, he covenanted that, if you should make alliance with him as well, he would specify in writing the great benefits that he would confer on Athens. But now that both peace and alliance are concluded, he says that he does not know what he can do to oblige you, but that, if you will tell him, he will do anything that is consistent with his own honor and reputation—taking refuge in this saving clause, and leaving himself a loophole in case you make any proposal or are induced to ask any favor.
42
All this chicanery, and much besides, might have been instantly detected, and you might have been informed and spared the sacrifice of your interests, if you had not been cheated out of the truth by that story of Thespiae and Plataea and the imminent punishment of the Thebans. Yet if Philip’s promises were merely for show, and if the city was to be deluded, it was right to mention them; if, on the other hand, they were really to be fulfilled, it was best to say nothing about them. For if the project was so far matured that the Thebans could gain nothing by hearing of it, why has it not been executed? But if it has been thwarted because they had news of it in time, who let the secret out?
43
Aeschines? Oh no; it was never meant to come off, and he neither wanted it nor expected it; let him be quit of the imputation of blabbing! The truth is that his purpose required that you should be hoodwinked by that talk; that you should refuse to hear the truth from me and should stay at home; and that they should triumphantly carry a decree ensuring the destruction of the Phocians. That is why this tissue of lies was woven; that is why it was made the theme of a popular harangue.