[49]
For if you have the guarantee of some god,
since no mere mortal could be a satisfactory surety for such an event that if
you remain inactive and abandon everything, Philip will not in the end march
against yourselves, by Zeus and all the other gods, it would be disgraceful and
unworthy of you and of the resources of your city and the record of your
ancestors to abandon all the other Greeks to enslavement for the sake of your
own ease, and I for one would rather die than be guilty of proposing such a
policy. All the same, if someone else proposes it and wins your assent, so be
it: offer no resistance, sacrifice everything.
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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