4
I must first refresh your memory with a little history. You remember, men of Athens, when news came three or four years ago that Philip was in Thrace besieging the fortress of Heraeum. Well, it was the month of Maemacterion, and there was a long and excited debate in the Assembly, and you finally decided to launch a fleet of forty vessels manned by citizens under the age of forty-five, and to raise forty talents by a special tax.
5
That year passed and Hecatombaeon came and Metageitnion and Boëdromion. In that month, with a great effort, after the celebration of the MysteriesThe Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated between the 13th and 24th of Boëdromion, i.e. about the beginning of October. you dispatched Charidemus with ten ships, unmanned, and a sum of five talents of silver. When news came that Philip was ill or dead—both reports reached us—you, Athenians, thinking that help was no longer needed, abandoned the expedition. But that was just your opportunity. If we had carried out our resolution in earnest and sailed to Thrace then, Philip would not have survived to trouble us today.
6
Well, what is done cannot be undone; but now comes the opportunity of another war. That was why I have referred to the past, that you may not make the same mistake again. What use, men of Athens, are we to make of our opportunity? For if you do not send help in full muster, whereto your power shall extend,As Sandys has noted,the phrase is probably a formula borrowed from the actual text of the treaty. observe how all your generalship will make for Philip’s success.
