_Aristides_.--How could it happen that Athens, after having recovered an
equality with Sparta, should be forced to submit to the dominion of
Macedon when she had two such great men as Phocion and Demosthenes at the
head of her State?
_Phocion_.--It happened because our opinions of her interests in foreign
affairs were totally different; which made us act with a constant and
pernicious opposition the one to the other.
_Aristides_.--I wish to hear from you both (if you will indulge my
curiosity) on what principles you could form such contrary judgments
concerning points of such moment to the safety of your country, which you
equally loved.
_Demosthenes_.--My principles were the same with yours, Aristides. I
laboured to maintain the independence of Athens against the encroaching
ambition of Macedon, as you had maintained it against that of Persia. I
saw that our own strength was unequal to the enterprise; but what we
could not do alone I thought might be done by a union of the principal
states of Greece--such a union as had been formed by you and Themistocles
in opposition to the Persians. To effect this was the great, the
constant aim of my policy; and, though traversed in it by many whom the
gold of Macedon had corrupted, and by Phocion, whom alone, of all the
enemies to my system, I must acquit of corruption, I so far succeeded,
that I brought into the field of Chaeronea an army equal to Philip's. The
event was unfortunate; but Aristides will not judge of the merits of a
statesman by the accidents of war.
_Phocion_.--Do not imagine, Aristides, that I was less desirous than
Demosthenes to preserve the independence and liberty of my country. But,
before I engaged the Athenians in a war not absolutely necessary, I
thought it proper to consider what the event of a battle would probably
be. That which I feared came to pass: the Macedonians were victorious,
and Athens was ruined.
_Demosthenes_.--Would Athens not have been ruined if no battle had been
fought? Could you, Phocion, think it safety to have our freedom depend
on the moderation of Philip? And what had we else to protect us, if no
confederacy had been formed to resist his ambition?
_Phocion_.--I saw no wisdom in accelerating the downfall of my country by
a rash activity in provoking the resentment of an enemy, whose arms, I
foretold, would in the issue prove superior, not only to ours, but to
those of any confederacy we were able to form. My maxim was, that a
state which cannot make itself stronger than any of its neighbours,
should live in friendship with that power which is the strongest. But
the more apparent it was that our strength was inferior to that of
Macedon, the more you laboured to induce us, by all the vehemence of your
oratory, to take such measures as tended to render Philip our enemy, and
exasperate him more against us than any other nation. This I thought a
rash conduct. It was not by orations that the dangerous war you had
kindled could finally be determined; nor did your triumphs over me in an
assembly of the people intimidate any Macedonian in the field of
Chaeronea, or stop you yourself from flying out of that field.
_Demosthenes_.--My flight from thence, I must own, was ignominious to me;
but it affects not the question we are agitating now, whether the
counsels I gave to the people of Athens, as a statesman and a public
minister, were right or wrong. When first I excited them to make war
against Philip, the victories gained by Chabrias, in which you, Phocion,
had a share (particularly that of Naxos, which completely restored to us
the empire of the sea), had enabled us to maintain, not only our own
liberty, but that of all Greece, in the defence of which we had formerly
acquired so much glory, and which our ancestors thought so important to
the safety and independence of Athens. Philip's power was but beginning,
and supported itself more by craft than force. I saw, and I warned my
countrymen in due time, how impolitic it would be to suffer his
machinations to be carried on with success, and his strength to increase
by continual acquisitions, without resistance. I exposed the weakness of
that narrow, that short-sighted policy, which looked no farther than to
our own immediate borders, and imagined that whatsoever lay out of those
bounds was foreign to our interests, and unworthy of our care. The force
of my remonstrances roused the Athenians to a more vigilant conduct. Then
it was that the orators whom Philip had corrupted loudly inveighed
against me, as alarming the people with imaginary dangers, and drawing
them into quarrels in which they had really no concern. This language,
and the fair professions of Philip, who was perfectly skilled in the
royal art of dissembling, were often so prevalent, that many favourable
opportunities of defeating his designs were unhappily lost. Yet
sometimes, by the spirit with which I animated the Athenians and other
neighbouring states, I stopped the progress of his arms, and opposed to
him such obstacles as cost him much time and much labour to remove. You
yourself, Phocion, at the head of fleets and armies sent against him by
decrees which I had proposed, vanquished his troops in Eubaea, and saved
from him Byzantium, with other cities of our allies on the coasts of the
Hellespont, from which you drove him with shame.
_Phocion_.--The proper use of those advantages was to secure a peace to
Athens, which they inclined him to keep. His ambition was checked, but
his forces were not so much diminished as to render it safe to provoke
him to further hostilities.
_Demosthenes_.--His courage and policy were indeed so superior to ours
that, notwithstanding his defeats, he was soon in a condition to pursue
the great plan of conquest and dominion which he had formed long before,
and from which he never desisted. Thus, through indolence on our side
and activity on his, things were brought to such a crisis that I saw no
hope of delivering all Greece from his yoke, but by confederating against
him the Athenians and the Thebans, which league I effected. Was it not
better to fight for the independence of our country in conjunction with
Thebes than alone? Would a battle lost in Boeotia be so fatal to Athens
as one lost in our own territory and under our own walls?
_Phocion_.--You may remember that when you were eagerly urging this
argument I desired you to consider, not where we should fight, but how we
should be conquerors; for, if we were vanquished, all sorts of evils and
dangers would be instantly at our gates.
_Aristides_.--Did not you tell me, Demosthenes, when you began to speak
upon this subject, that you brought into the field of Chaeronea an army
equal to Philip's?
_Demosthenes_.--I did, and believe that Phocion will not contradict me.
_Aristides_.--But, though equal in number, it was, perhaps, much inferior
to the Macedonians in valour and military discipline.
_Demosthenes_.--The courage shown by our army excited the admiration of
Philip himself, and their discipline was inferior to none in Greece.
_Aristides_.--What then occasioned their defeat?
_Demosthenes_.--The bad conduct of their generals.
_Aristides_.--Why was the command not given to Phocion, whose abilities
had been proved on so many other occasions? Was it offered to him, and
did he refuse to accept it? You are silent, Demosthenes. I understand
your silence. You are unwilling to tell me that, having the power, by
your influence over the people, to confer the command on what Athenian
you pleased, you were induced, by the spirit of party, to lay aside a
great general who had been always successful, who had the chief
confidence of your troops and of your allies, in order to give it to men
zealous indeed for your measures and full of military ardour, but of
little capacity or experience in the conduct of a war. You cannot plead
that, if Phocion had led your troops against Philip, there was any danger
of his basely betraying his trust. Phocion could not be a traitor. You
had seen him serve the Republic and conquer for it in wars, the
undertaking of which he had strenuously opposed, in wars with Philip. How
could you then be so negligent of the safety of your country as not to
employ him in this, the most dangerous of all she ever had waged? If
Chares and Lysicles, the two generals you chose to conduct it, had
commanded the Grecian forces at Marathon and Plataea we should have lost
those battles. All the men whom you sent to fight the Macedonians under
such leaders were victims to the animosity between you and Phocion, which
made you deprive them of the necessary benefit of his wise direction.
This I think the worst blemish of your administration. In other parts of
your conduct I not only acquit but greatly applaud and admire you. With
the sagacity of a most consummate statesman you penetrated the deepest
designs of Philip, you saw all the dangers which threatened Greece from
that quarter while they were yet at a distance, you exhorted your
countrymen to make a timely provision for their future security, you
spread the alarm through all the neighbouring states, you combined the
most powerful in a confederacy with Athens, you carried the war out of
Attica, which (let Phocion say what he will) was safer than meeting it
there, you brought it, after all that had been done by the enemy to
strengthen himself and weaken us, after the loss of Amphipolis, Olynthus,
and Potidaea, the outguards of Athens, you brought it, I say, to the
decision of a battle with equal forces. When this could be effected
there was evidently nothing so desperate in our circumstances as to
justify an inaction which might probably make them worse, but could not
make them better. Phocion thinks that a state which cannot itself be the
strongest should live in friendship with that power which is the
strongest. But in my opinion such friendship is no better than
servitude. It is more advisable to endeavour to supply what is wanting
in our own strength by a conjunction with others who are equally in
danger. This method of preventing the ruin of our country was tried by
Demosthenes. Nor yet did he neglect, by all practicable means, to
augment at the same time our internal resources. I have heard that when
he found the Public Treasure exhausted he replenished it, with very great
peril to himself, by bringing into it money appropriated before to the
entertainment of the people, against the express prohibition of a popular
law, which made it death to propose the application thereof to any other
use. This was virtue, this was true and genuine patriotism. He owed all
his importance and power in the State to the favour of the people; yet,
in order to serve the State, he did not fear, at the evident hazard of
his life, to offend their darling passion and appeal against it to their
reason.
_Phocion_.--For this action I praise him. It was, indeed, far more
dangerous for a minister at Athens to violate that absurd and extravagant
law than any of those of Solon. But though he restored our finances, he
could not restore our lost virtue; he could not give that firm health,
that vigour to the State, which is the result of pure morals, of strict
order and civil discipline, of integrity in the old, and obedience in the
young. I therefore dreaded a conflict with the solid strength of
Macedon, where corruption had yet made but a very small progress, and was
happy that Demosthenes did not oblige me, against my own inclination, to
be the general of such a people in such war.
_Aristides_.--I fear that your just contempt of the greater number of
those who composed the democracy so disgusted you with this mode and form
of government, that you were as averse to serve under it as others with
less ability and virtue than you were desirous of obtruding themselves
into its service. But though such a reluctance proceeds from a very
noble cause, and seems agreeable to the dignity of a great mind in bad
times, yet it is a fault against the highest of moral obligations--the
love of our country. For, how unworthy soever individuals may be, the
public is always respectable, always dear to the virtuous.
_Phocion_.--True; but no obligation can lie upon a citizen to seek a
public charge when he foresees that his obtaining of it will be useless
to his country. Would you have had me solicit the command of an army
which I believed would be beaten?
_Aristides_.--It is not permitted to a State to despair of its safety
till its utmost efforts have been made without success. If you had
commanded the army at Chaeronea you might possibly have changed the event
of the day; but, if you had not, you would have died more honourably
there than in a prison at Athens, betrayed by a vain confidence in the
insecure friendship of a perfidious Macedonian.