Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/439

SPEECH OF AESCHINES. 415 mitted to the public assembly. So adverse was this resolution to the envoys, that it neither commended them nor invited them to dinner in the prytaneium ; an insult (according to Demosthenes) without any former precedent. On the 16th of the- month Skirrophorion, three days after the return of the envoys, the first public assembly was held : where, according to usual form, the resolution just passed by the Senate ought to have been discussed. But it was not even read to the assembly ; for immediately on the opening of business (so De- mosthenes tells us), JEschines rose and proceeded to address the people, who were naturally impatient to hear him before any one else, speaking as he did in the name of his colleagues generally. 1 He said nothing either about the recent statements of Demosthe- nes before the Senate, or the senatorial resolution following, or even the past history of the embassy but passed at once to the actual state of affairs, and the coming future. He acquainted the people that Philip, having sworn the oaths at Pherae, had by this time reached Thermopylae with his army. " But he comes there (said JEschines) as the friend and ally of Athens, the pro- tector of the Phokians, the restorer of the enslaved Boeotian cities, and the enemy of Thebes alone. "We your envoys have satisfied him that the Thebans are the real wrong-doers, not only in their oppression towards the Boeotian cities, but also in regard to the spoliation of the temple, which they had conspired to per- petrate earlier than the Phokians. I (./Eschines) exposed in an emphatic speech before Philip the iniquities of the Thebans, for which proceeding they have set a price on my life. You Athe- nians will hear, in two or three days, without any trouble of your testimony of the senator who moved it. The document is not found verbatim, but Demosthenes comments upon it before the Dikasts after it has been read, and especially points out that it contains neither praise not invitation, which the Senate was always in the habit of voting to return- ing envoys. This is sufficient to refute the allegation of ^Eschines (Fals Leg. p. 44. c. 38), that Demosthenes himself moved a resolution to praise the envoys and invite them to a banquet in the Prytaneium. JEschines does not produce such resolution, nor cause it to be read before the Di kasts. 1 Demosth. Fals. Leg. p. 347, 351, 352. TOVTO fisv ovdetf avsyvu rj MIHV rb irpo(3ovXev/2a, ovff qicovaev 6 <%zof, avaoruf S 1 OVTO; The date of the 16th Skirrophorion is specified, p, 359. 85*