World's Best Orations from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (Volume 5) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900. Excerpt: ... as nobody. The rest about him are brigands and parasites and men of that character, who will get drunk and perform dances which I scruple to name before you. My information is undoubtedly true; for persons whom all scouted here as worse rascals than mountebanks, Callias the town-slave and the like of him, antic-jesters and composers of ribald songs to lampoon their companions, such persons Philip caresses and keeps about him. Small matters these may be thought, Athenians, but to the wise they are strong indications of his character and wrong-headedness. Success, perhaps, throws a shade over them now; prosperity is a famous hider of such blemishes; but on any miscarriage they will be fully exposed. And this (trust me, Athenians) will appear in no long time, if the gods so will and you determine. For as in the human body, a man in health feels not partial ailments, but, when illness occurs, all are in motion, whether it be a rupture or a sprain or anything else unsound, so with states and monarchs, while they wage eternal war, their weaknesses are undiscerned by most men, but the tug of a frontier war betrays all. If any of you think Philip a formidable opponent because they see he is fortunate, such reasoning is prudent, Athenians. Fortune has, indeed, a great preponderance--nay, is everything in human affairs. Not but that, if I had the choice, I should prefer our fortune to Philip's, would you but moderately perform your duty. For I see you have many more claims to the divine favor than he has. But we sit doing nothing; and a man idle himself cannot require even his friends to act for him, much less the gods. No wonder, then, that he, marching and toiling in person, present on all occasions, neglecting no time or season, prevails over us delaying and vot...