10
Now in one respect—for I shall speak my mind—the Areopagus fully deserves this treatment. It was faced with two alternatives. One would have been, in accordance with the people's instructions, to conduct the previous investigation over the three hundred talents which came from the Persian kingAfter Alexander's accession Darius subsidized several Greek states to oppose him. Three hundred talents offered by him to Athens and officially refused were said to have been accepted by Demosthenes to be used in the king's interest. Cf. Din. 1.18; Aeschin. 3.239 (who gives the sum which Demosthenes appropriated as seventy talents); Dio. Sic. 17.4.; in which case this monster would have been convicted and the names of those who shared the money published; the betrayal of Thebes, for which Demosthenes was responsible,In 335 B.C., owing to a report that Alexander, who was fighting the Triballi, had been killed, Thebes revolted against Macedonian domination encouraged by Demosthenes and others who assisted them to procure arms. When they applied for assistance to the Peloponnese and Athens, the Peloponnesians sent an army as far as the Isthmus, while Athens voted help but awaited the turn of events. Meanwhile Thebes was taken by Alexander and destroyed. Dinarchus, who goes into greater detail later (Din. 1.18-22), maintains that for ten talents of the Persian money Demosthenes could have secured the help of the Peloponnesian army but was too miserly to do so. Cf. Dio. Sic. 17.8; Aeschin. 3.239-240. would have been exposed, and we, exacting from this demagogue the punishment he deserved, would have been rid of him.
