[11]
But there are some
who, without waiting to hear the speeches on these questions, are in the habit
of asking at once, “What then ought we to do?”—not
in order to do it, when they have heard it, for if so, they would be the most
helpful of all citizens, but simply to get rid of the speaker. Nevertheless, you
must be told what you ought to do. First, men of Athens, you must fix this firmly in your minds, that Philip is
at war with us and has broken the peace, and that he is ill-disposed and hostile
to the whole city and to the very soil on which the city stands, and, I will
add, to the gods that dwell in it; and may those same gods complete his ruin!
The chief object, however, of his arms and his diplomacy is our free
constitution, and on nothing in the world is he more bent than on its
destruction.
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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