79
But you find fault with my service as ambassador to Arcadia and my speech before the Ten ThousandThe national assembly of the Arcadians. Aeschines appeared before them in 348 in the attempt to counteract the work of Philip’s agents among them. there, and you say that I have changed sides—yourself more slave than freeman, all but branded as a runaway! So long as the war lasted, I tried so far as in me lay to unite the Arcadians and the rest of Hellas against Philip. But when no man came to the help of our city, but some were waiting to see what was going to happen, and others were taking the field against us, while the politicians in our own city were using the war to subsidize the extravagance of their daily life,For this use of χορηγόν see the note on Aeschin. 3.240 (χορηγεῖς) of the Speech against Ctesiphon. I acknowledge that I advised the people to come to terms with Philip, and to make the peace, which you, Demosthenes, now hold disgraceful, you who never had a weapon of war in your hands—but which I declare to be much more honourable than the war.
80
You ought, fellow citizens, to judge your ambassadors in the light of the crisis in which they served your generals, in the light of the forces which they commanded. For you set up your statues and you give your seats of honour and your crowns and your dinners in the Prytaneum, not to those who have brought you tidings of peace, but to those who have been victorious in battle. But if the responsibility for the wars is to he laid upon the ambassadors, while the generals are to receive the rewards, the wars you wage will know neither truce nor herald of peace, for no man will be willing to be your ambassador.
