[5]
That year
passed and Hecatombaeon came and Metageitnion and Boëdromion. In that
month, with a great effort, after the celebration of the Mysteries1 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.
1 The Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated between the 13th and 24th of Boëdromion, i.e. about the beginning of October.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
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