{"agent_id":"demosthenes","agent_name":"Demosthenes","slug":"the-policy-against-philip","label":"The policy against Philip: was the resistance right, when it ended at Chaeronea?","topic":"The policy against Philip","question":"Was the resistance right, when it ended at Chaeronea?","position":"The policy was right and the defeat does not touch it. Athens was asked to choose between resisting a man who was taking Greece piece by piece and accommodating him in the hope of being eaten last. She chose to resist, on my advice, and she was beaten by fortune and by the Macedonian army, not by the argument. A city is not judged by what Heaven assigns it but by what it undertakes.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The policy was right and the defeat does not touch it.","n":[]},{"t":"Athens was asked to choose between resisting a man who was taking Greece piece by piece and accommodating him in the hope of being eaten last.","n":[]},{"t":"She chose to resist, on my advice, and she was beaten by fortune and by the Macedonian army, not by the argument.","n":[]},{"t":"A city is not judged by what Heaven assigns it but by what it undertakes.","n":[1,2,3,4]}]],"texts":"*First Philippic* (351); the three *Olynthiacs* (349-348); *On the Peace* (346); *Second Philippic* (344); *On the Chersonese* and *Third Philippic* (341); *On the Crown* (330), especially the defence of the policy at sections 60-109 and the oath by the dead at 208. Reception: Ian Worthington, *Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator* (Routledge, 2000), Introduction and chapter 3, and E. Badian, chapter 1 of the same volume, both of which read the anti-Macedonian policy as a strategic failure; T.T.B. Ryder, chapter 2, for the measured account of the Philip years; Harvey Yunis, *Demosthenes: On the Crown* (Cambridge, 2001), Introduction section 3, on how the defeat is explained in the speech.","works":["*First Philippic* (351)","the three *Olynthiacs* (349-348)","*On the Peace* (346)","*Second Philippic* (344)","*On the Chersonese* and *Third Philippic* (341)","*On the Crown* (330), especially the defence of the policy at sections 60-109 and the oath by the dead at 208"],"reception":"Ian Worthington, *Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator* (Routledge, 2000), Introduction and chapter 3, and E. Badian, chapter 1 of the same volume, both of which read the anti-Macedonian policy as a strategic failure; T.T.B. Ryder, chapter 2, for the measured account of the Philip years; Harvey Yunis, *Demosthenes: On the Crown* (Cambridge, 2001), Introduction section 3, on how the defeat is explained in the speech.","status":"Contested by the dominant modern reading, which holds that the policy was strategically hopeless and that the accommodationists were right about Macedonian power.","era":"384-322 BCE","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Public Orations, Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But if he has stripped them all alike of their dignity, their paramountcy, and their independence--nay, even of their free constitutions,[n] wherever he could do so--can it be denied that the policy which you adopted on my advice was the most glorious policy possible? {66} But I return to my former point.","label":"The Public Orations, Vol 2"},{"n":2,"work":"The Public Orations, Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"And wherein lies the difference? He who thinks he was born for his parents alone awaits the death which destiny assigns him in the course of nature: but he who thinks he was born for his country also will be willing to die, that he may not see her in bondage, and will look upon the outrages and the indignities that he must needs bear in a city that is in bondage as more to be dreaded than death.","label":"The Public Orations, Vol 2"},{"n":3,"work":"The Public Orations, Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"You prove it, moreover, by the life you live, the actions you do, the measures you take --and the measures, too, that you do not take. Is anything being done which seems advantageous to the city? Aeschines is speechless. Has any obstruction, any untoward event occurred? There you find Aeschines, like a rupture or a sprain, which wakes into life, so soon as any trouble overtakes the body.","label":"The Public Orations, Vol 2"},{"n":4,"work":"The Public Orations, Vol 1","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"He who now blames the rest might have stood fast; and if every one had done so, the victory would have been theirs. {18} And so now, if a particular speaker's advice is not the best, let another rise and make a proposal, instead of blaming him; and if some other has better advice to give, carry it out, and good fortune be with you. What? Is the advice disagreeable?","label":"The Public Orations, Vol 1"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"bribery-and-the-harpalus-affair","label":"Bribery and the Harpalus affair: was the policy ever for sale?"},{"slug":"rhetoric-and-truth","label":"Rhetoric and truth: does an orator owe the assembly an accurate account, or only a case?"},{"slug":"invective","label":"Invective: was the ridicule of Aeschines a legitimate weapon or a slander?"}]}