33
Yet to that I give but a secondary place, as a tool the man used. It was the man himself I marvelled at, his spirit and his wisdom, and the steadiness of soul that steered a straight course through all the tempests of fortune with never a craven impulse. And Philip was of my mind about him; when a speech of his before the Athenian assembly against Philip was reported, Parmenio was angry, and made some bitter jest upon him. But Philip said: 44, Parmenio, be has a right to say what he pleases; he is the only popular orator in all Greece whose name is missing in my secret service accounts, though I would far rather have put myself in his hands than in those of clerks and third-rate actors. All the tribe of them are down for gold, timber, rents, cattle, land, in Bocotia if not in MacedoniaTo get a meaning, I translate as though the Greek, instead of οὐ Βοιωτίας οὐδ᾽ ἔνθα τι μή, ννεῖε ὁ μὲν Βοιωτίας, ὁ δ᾽ ἔνθα.; but the walls of Byzantium are not more proof against the battering-ram than Demosthenes against gold.
34
This is the way I look at it, Parmenio. An Athenian who speaking in Athens prefers me to bis country shall have of my money, but not of my friendship 3 as for one who hates me for bis country’s sake, I will assault bim as I would a citadel, a wall, a dock, a trench, but I have only admiration for his virtue, and congratulations for the State that possesses him. The other kind I should like to crush as soon as they have served my purpose; but bim I would sooner have here with us than the Illyrian and Triballian horse and all my mercenaries; arguments that carry conviction, weight of intellect, I do not put below force of arms.
