calamities than any one could possibly imprecate upon them. Should we fear a man whom both fortune and heaven declare to be an unprofitable friend and a useful enemy? If it were possible with one heart and with united forces to attack him alone, such an injury I could not pronounce to be an injustice. But since this cannot be, I say we must be cautious, and not afford the King a pretence for vindicating the rights of the other Greeks. Do not expose the melancholy condition of Greece by convoking her people when you cannot persuade them, and making war when you cannot carry it on. Only keep quiet, fear nothing, and prepare yourselves. My advice in brief is this: Prepare yourselves against existing enemies; and you ought with the same force to be able to resist the King and all others, if they attempt to injure you. But never begin a wrong in word or deed. Let us look that our actions, and not our speeches on the platform, be worthy of our ancestors. If you pursue this course, you will do service not only to yourselves, but also to those who give the opposite counsel; for you will not be angry with them afterwards for errors now committed."
In this speech Demosthenes may be said to foreshadow the general character of his foreign policy. He did not wish Athens to be aggressive, but simply to hold her own with a firm hand. This, he thought, she might well be persuaded to do. Grand schemes of Panhellenic union against the empire of Persia, such as floated before the imagination of Isocrates, and were,
