135
for this is the reason, I think, that in our childhood we commit to memory the sentiments of the poets, that when we are men we may make use of them: Ofttimes whole peoples suffer from one man, Whose deeds are sinful, and whose purpose base. From heaven Cromon launches on their heads Dire woe of plague and famine joined; and all The people waste away. Or else he smites Their wide-camped host, or wall. Or wrath of Zeus Far-thundering wrecks their ships upon the sea.Hes. WD 240 ff.; cp. Aeschin. 2.158. Hes. WD 240
136
If you disregard the poet’s meter and examine only his thought, I think this will seem to you to be, not a poem of Hesiod, but an oracle directed against the politics of Demosthenes. For by his politics army and navy and peoples have been utterly destroyed.
137
I think that not Phrynondas and not Eurybatus, nor any other of the traitors of ancient times ever proved himself such a juggler and cheat as this man, who, oh earth and heaven, oh ye gods and men—if any men of you will listen to the truth—dares to look you in the face and say that Thebes actually made the alliance with you, not because of the crisis, not because of the fear that was impending over them, not because of your reputation, but because of Demosthenes’ declamations!
138
And yet in other days many men who had stood in the closest relations with the Thebans had gone on missions to them; first, Thrasymachus of Collytus, a man trusted in Thebes as no other ever was; again, Thrason of Erchia, proxenus of the Thebans;