In this crisis Demosthenes gave his counsel. It was to the following effect:—
"I said," he tells us, "that the dismay of those who suppose that Philip could still count on the Thebans must proceed from an ignorance of the real state of the case. If that were so, it would not be at Elateia—it would be on our own frontier—that we should hear of Philip. That he had come to make things ready for him in Thebes I knew well. But mark, I said, how the matter stands. Every man in Thebes whom money can buy, every man whom flattery can gain, has long ago been secured. But he is totally unable to prevail upon those who have withstood him from the beginning, and who are opposing him still. What, then, has brought Philip to Elateia? He hopes, by a military demonstration in your neighbourhood, and by bringing up his army, to raise the courage and confidence of his friends, and to strike terror into his enemies, so that they may be frightened or coerced into surrendering what hitherto they have been unwilling to concede. If, then, I said, we choose at this crisis to remember every ill turn which the Thebans have done us, and to distrust them and treat them as enemies, in the first place we shall be doing the very thing which Philip most desires; and next, I fear that, his present adversaries embracing his cause, they will all fall on Attica together. If you will be advised by me, and regard what I am about to say as matter for reflection rather than for disputation, I believe that my counsel will obtain your approbation, and be the means of averting the peril which now
