William Jackson Brodribb

“ They know too well that no other people will bring things back to freedom; therefore they will wish to destroy a government from which they apprehend mischief to themselves. Ordinary wrong-doers you may regard as enemies to the sufferers; while they who subvert constitutions and transform them into oligarchies must be looked upon as the common enemies of all lovers of freedom."
In the opinion of Demosthenes it thus appears that oligarchy was in fact slavery, and wholly alien to the Greek genius. The memory of the Athens of Pericles was deeply impressed on his mind. ”

“ If you will adopt this principle now, though you have not hitherto done so—and if every man, when he can and ought to give his service to the State, be ready to give it without excuse—if the rich will contribute, if the able-bodied will enlist,—in a word, plainly, if you will become your own masters, and cease each expecting to do nothing himself, while his neighbour does everything for him,—then will you, with heaven's permission, recover your own, and get back what has been frittered away, and chastise Philip. ”

“ I marvel none of you consider that, when the Rhodians and nearly all people are drawn into this slavery, our constitution must be in the same peril. If all other governments are oligarchical, it is impossible that they will let your democracy alone. ”

“ You must in counsel overcome a faction which acts among you in systematic opposition to the State. Men who desert the politics handed down to them by their ancestors, and support oligarchical measures, should be degraded and deprived of constitutional privileges, and disqualified from being your political advisers."
Again Demosthenes failed. The bitterness of Athenian feeling towards the ungrateful islanders made the people blind to higher considerations, and Rhodes remained in the hands of an oligarchy. ”

“ You need not pry into the future, but assure yourselves that it will be disastrous, unless you give your mind to your duty, and are willing to act as becomes you."
The only result of this speech was, that a paltry four or five ships were sent to the Chersonese under a mercenary and somewhat disreputable general, Charidemus. The fact was, that there was a numerous party at Athens who never could be persuaded that Philip would some day be a really dangerous enemy. Persia was the power of which they were always thinking as the great source of peril to Greece. ”

“ But by continually encroaching and grasping after more, he may possibly rouse you, if you have not altogether despaired, I marvel, indeed, that not one of you notices with concern and anger that the beginning of this war was to chastise Philip; the end is to protect ourselves against his attacks. ”

“ If any of you think the man a formidable foe, looking at the vastness of his present power and our loss of all our strongholds, that is reasonable enough; only you should reflect that there was a time when we held Pydna, and Potidæa, and Methone, with all the adjacent country, and that many of the nations now in league with Philip were independent and free, and preferred our friendship to his. ”

“ There was, it seems, one of those horrible incidents with which Greek history is so often disfigured—a massacre of the democratic leaders and of the adherents of Athens. But the oligarchy now imposed on the island did not last long. The Spartan fleet was defeated, and Rhodes and most of the islands of the Ægean returned to the Athenian alliance. We may take for granted that democracy was re-established. Then came, in 358 B.C., the Social War, the war between Athens and her allies, which broke up the second Athenian empire. ”

“ In a speech delivered some months or perhaps a year afterwards, he reminds her that she ought to be the champion of democracy and of popular government. From this point of view, the oration entitled "On the freedom of the people of Rhodes" has much interest. We rather gather, from the general tone of the speech, that Philip's restlessness had ceased for a time, or at all events that he had something else to do than to threaten the possessions and the commerce of Athens. ”

“ But what made it singularly alarming was, that it was a most dangerous menace to the Athenian interests on the north of the Ægean. It meant, in fact, peril to the corn trade of Athens, and high prices and possibly famine to the citizens. It showed too, clearly enough, that Philip, if he could, would rob the city of its most valuable outlying possessions. Thus the eyes of the people ought to have been thoroughly opened to the danger which hung over them ”

“ It is a hard matter to soothe the temper of people when they feel, as the Athenians now did, that they have suffered much from ingratitude. Popular assemblies, under such circumstances, are apt to be peculiarly angry and excited. ”

“ Do not imagine that his empire is everlastingly secured to him as to a god. There are who hate and fear and envy him, even among those that seem most friendly; and all feelings natural to other men exist, we may assume, in his confederates. ”

“ He hints plainly in this speech at the existence of an unpatriotic faction in the State.
"It is difficult for you," he says, "to adopt right measures. All other men have one battle to fight—namely, against their open and avowed enemies. ”

“ Acting on that principle, he has won everything, and keeps it either by way of conquest or by friendly attachment and alliance; for all men will side with and respect those whom they see prepared and willing to make proper exertions. ”