The other Amphictyons took their seats. Now it was reported to us by one and another who wished to show friendship to our city, that the Amphissians, who were at that time dominated by the Thebans and were their abject servants, were in the act of bringing in a resolution against our city, to the effect that the people of Athens be fined fifty talents, because we had affixed gilded shields to the new temple and dedicated them before the temple had been consecrated, and had written the appropriate inscription, “The Athenians, from the Medes and Thebans when they fought against Hellas.”1The hieromnemon sent for me and asked me to go into the council and speak to the Amphictyons in behalf of our city—indeed I had already determined of myself so to do.
1 The temple of Apollo at Delphi had been seriously injured by fire in 373 b.c. Repairs had been going on under an inter state commission. The work had been interrupted by the Phocian war, but was at this time nearing completion. The shields that the Athenians had caused to be re-hung were a part of the Athenian booty from the battle of Plataea. For almost a century and a half they had been an eyesore to the Thebans.
Aeschines. Aeschines with an English translation by Charles Darwin Adams, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1919.
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