[42]
All this chicanery, and much besides, might
have been instantly detected, and you might have been informed and spared the
sacrifice of your interests, if you had not been cheated out of the truth by
that story of Thespiae and Plataea and the imminent punishment of the
Thebans. Yet if Philip's promises were merely for show, and if the city was to
be deluded, it was right to mention them; if, on the other hand, they were
really to be fulfilled, it was best to say nothing about them. For if the
project was so far matured that the Thebans could gain nothing by hearing of it,
why has it not been executed? But if it has been thwarted because they had news
of it in time, who let the secret out?
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