[81]
That is the character of your adviser. Demosthenes has made
only these two journeys abroad in his life1: one after the battle when he ran
away from the city, and another just recently to Olympia when he wanted to use the presidency of the sacred
embassy as a means of meeting Nicanor.2 A right thing indeed to
entrust the city to this man's charge, when danger confronts us! When it was
time to fight against the enemy, side by side with his fellows, he left his post
and made for home; yet when he should have stayed at home to face danger with
them, he offered himself as an envoy and ran away and left the city.
1 This statement is wholly incorrect and Dinarchus appears to be contradicting himself, since in Din. 1.12 of this speech he does not attempt to refute Demosthenes' claim to have served on many embassies. By excluding the words “in his life” and placing a colon after “battle” Maetzner would alter the sense to: “Demosthenes has made only these two journeys abroad since the battle of Chaeronea.”
2 Demosthenes was the chief Athenian religious envoy at the Olympic games in 324 B.C. when Nicanor presented Alexander's decree demanding that exiles should be allowed to return to all Greek cities except Thebes. Cf. Dio. Sic. 18.8; Hyp. 5 col. 18.
Dinarchus. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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