265
But when some of them began to accept bribes, when the populace was so stupid, or, let us say, so unlucky, as to give more credence to those persons than to patriotic speakers, when Lasthenes had roofed his house with timber sent as a present from Macedonia, and Euthycrates was keeping a large herd of cattle for which he had paid nothing to anybody, when one man returned home with a flock of sheep and another with a stud of horses, when the masses, whose interests were endangered, instead of being angry and demanding the punishment of the traitors, stared at them, envied them, honored them, and thought them fine fellows,—
266
when, I say, the business had gone so far as that, and corruption had won the day, then, though they numbered more than ten thousand and had a thousand cavalry, though all their neighbors were in alliance with them, though you came to their aid with ten thousand mercenaries, fifty war-galleys, and four thousand of your citizen-force, nothing could save them. Before the war had lasted a year they had lost every town in Chalcidice through treachery, and Philip could no longer pay any attention to the traitors, and hardly knew what to capture first.