20
Now, men of Athens, you have most distinctly seen this done by the Macedonians; for they have grown so arrogant that they forced all our ships coming from the Black Sea to put in at Tenedos, and under one pretence or another refused to release them until you passed a decree to man and launch a hundred war-galleys instantly, and you put Menestheus in command.
21
Is it not, then, absurd that others should be guilty of so many serious transgressions, but that their friends in Athens, instead of restraining the transgressors, should urge us to abide by the terms thus lightly regarded? As if there were a clause added, permitting some to violate them, but forbidding others even to defend their rights.
22
But was not the conduct of the Macedonians as stupid as it was lawless, when they committed such a gross violation of their oaths as deservedly went near to cost them their right to command at sea?The Congress gave Alexander the command of the Greek forces on sea as well as on land. If the Macedonians provoked the Athenians, who provided the greater part of a united Greek fleet, he might lose this command. Even as it is, they have supplied us with this unquestionable claim against them, whenever we choose to press it. For surely their violation of the joint agreement is not lessened because they have now ceased to offend.
23
But they are in luck, because they can make the most of your supineness, which prefers to take no advantage even of your due rights.
23
The greatest humiliation, however, that we have suffered is that all the other Greeks and barbarians dread your enmity, but these upstartsLiterally nouveaux riches, another word condemned by Libanius as un-Demosthenic. alone can make you despise yourselves, sometimes by persuasion, sometimes by force, as if Abdera or Maronea,Two cities of Thrace. The former was the Greek Gotham. and not Athens, were the scene of their political activities.
