So the first question is: why are we here, really? Why was this action brought against so insignificant a figure? There are at least two easy answers to the question. The first, I suggest, is fear. The death of Alexander has raised the hopes of those who would resist Macedonian power. Others are afraid that Athens will meet the same end as Thebes, if it comes to armed conflict. No point in Greece is more than two week’s march away for Antipater’s army. There is a need for an example to be made here, a sacrifice of someone supposed to be connected to the anti-Macedonian faction, to prove that Athens is not a threat.
The second reason is simple revenge. Of Aeschines’ antagonism toward Demosthenes, I need not elaborate. He has stooped before to attacking Demosthenes’s friends in lieu of the man himself. You may prove it to yourself: when Aeschines publishes his prosecution, as he always does, count how many times he makes reference to Demosthenes. The exercise will be very revealing. It might move you to ask who is really on trial here, though it is my neck that is in the noose!
But there is a larger, less obvious reason. It is this, O Athens: there is something wrong with our city. We can all sense it. We feel the pull of events and feel we must do something, but every way we turn raises howls of protest, or grave danger, or unpredictable consequences. It is as if we are at the top of a tall mountain, with a chasm all around us, and higher peaks beyond. We want to go higher, but we fear to take the steep path on the way. So we cling to where we are. And we admire men like Alexander, whom we, in our childish faith, believe would defy all limits.
I don’t say these things to prove I am cleverer than anyone else. I observe them as a man who has been too long away from home, and spent at least a part of everyday thinking about how he would get back. Sometimes fresh eyes give the clearest view. I wonder if my opponent agrees with me, so soon back from his own exile. Does this feel like the same city you left, Aeschines? Be honest! I understand that the hegemony of Alexander is not remembered as a time of glory here, but of hunger, of shortage. Yet how quickly some are willing to overlook the misery caused by his wars! Early in your statement, you said something about Alexander’s good looks making slaves of men. I agree with you that slaves were made in Athens-I’m just not sure it was his beauty that did the trick.
I will pass over in silence the bulk of my opponent’s calumnies, except to say that, his sensibilities notwithstanding, my mother was indeed a freedwoman, and my father’s love for her was not a farce. Of wild parties and whipping boys, he lets me off easily, as he presents not the slightest shred of evidence. Not that he has ever let that small problem get in the way of a rousing argument! Such lies are therefore nothing to me-the wise man, as they say, is content to let asses bray. I trust members of the jury have been around this barnyard enough to know where to step.
As I see it, all that matters are the charges. Aeschines and his sponsors accuse me of impiety, because they have gotten wind of some alleged acts of mine in the east that suggest that I treated Alexander like a man, not a god. They also charge me with violating my oath to the Assembly, because I pledged to help Alexander, and he ended up…well…closer to the gods than when he began. Imagine that, a soldier dying on campaign!
More laughter-and more nervous shuffling by Polycleitus and the Macedonians. Aeschines, for his part, was drawing his cloak around himself like a tortoise taking to his shell.
In any case, Aeschines says that I must either confess to malice, or to incompetence. But he forgets a third alternative-failure in good faith. Yes, I did fail to flatter Alexander’s pretensions to divinity! And yes, I did fail to save him from the consequences of his own contradictions! If these be actionable crimes, then I accept my guilt without further contest. But I would also point out that if simple failure were grounds for prosecution of our magistrates, then courts like this would never adjourn!
Now the jury was expecting Machon to be funny, erupting before he could finish his punchlines. Polycleitus made a flicking gesture at the clerk, who banged the floor with his staff until order was restored.
“The defendant is directed to refrain from mocking these proceedings. This is not a burlesque!”
My apologies. I also ask the jury to forgive me, for I get ahead of myself. My point is only that my conduct was appropriate to the circumstances of the campaign, and that I did serve the King in the best way I could. Athens need not fear for her particular honor, for in those times there was dishonor enough to go around for all. But to show this I must tell you what really happened on campaign with Alexander. Some of you will be surprised at what you will hear of this; most likely you have never heard the truth, and never will again, for my history is not as felicitous as that of poor Callisthenes, or of the other second-rate scribblers who have sprouted from the gore and ash Alexander spread from here to India. Aeschines complains that I have not published anything of my time in Asia. Far be it for me to disappoint him!
My story begins at Chaeronea. Like many of you, I travelled to the battle with all the joy of a groom about see his bride unwrapped. To have all the tension of those years, all the uncertainty in our confrontation with Macedon, suddenly cast aside, filled all of us with a love for our city that was all-sustaining. Patriotism, we believed, would be our food on the march-and for dessert, victory! Recall the sight: twenty thousand Athenians in the rusty armor of their grandfathers. Hayseeds and city boys streaming into the crossroads, greeting each other like reunited kin. The old men mustered for the last time, with steely gaze and hands trembling on the pikes, taking the kisses of young women on the roadsides. We were off to Boeotia, the theatre of so many other battles that Theban Epaminondas rightly called it the “dancing-floor of war.” Like the Thebans facing down Spartan power at Leuctra, the Athenians were coming at last to dance with King Philip and his detested Macedonians.
Our campfires spread for miles up the road by night. We bivouacked without sentries, without order, and without care. There were rumors that a man named Stratocles was in charge. He was a strategical genius, they said, and he had a plan to rout the Macedonians, who were much due for a humbling. A drink to victory! And another to Stratocles! And more after that, until the fires were superfluous, and we danced away whatever energy the march had left to us.
The joy division reached Thebes, and streamed around her walls, thinking the Theban army would come out to embrace their new allies. But the gates stayed shut, and the guards in the towers looked down on us warily. On the far side of the city we saw a neat square of armored men waiting on the road. It was not the whole Theban army, but the best part of it: we had the Theban Sacred Band on our side, three hundred strong. Since the action at Delium, 86 years before, this Band had never lost a battle. They fought as couples, each man consecrated to his lover in the ranks. It was a coup for Demosthenes, to have convinced the Thebans to plight this, their most cherished unit, in our cause. What need, then, of strategy, tactics, security? On to victory! And then on the Macedon, to smash the half-barbarian upstarts who presumed to enslave true Greeks! The only sour note was struck by the Thebans: though undefeated in more than a generation, they marched diffidently, without joy or confidence on their faces. Some thought they felt dishonored to share the road with us. We might have suspected that they had a better idea of the quality of the opposition.
Our scouts sighted the enemy in a narrow valley in the north of Boeotia. From that moment the events of the day became a blur to me. Stratocles, it turned out, had no strategy in mind. Officers from different units came scurrying up to organize us into phalanxes eight shields deep, then sixteen, then back to eight. First we stood here, then we stood there. An order went out to march forward onto the plain-but the command went to only half the army, leaving big gaps in our lines. The mood passed from happiness to frenzy, as everyone wanted something done, but no one was clearly in charge, and the gaps infuriated the officers, who yelled at the gallant but frustrated boys and old men. With these annoyances we became aware that we were footsore and, though we had feasted on patriotism, hungry. The good times on the road gave way to squabbling as men were crushed against each other. The only cool heads were on the shoulders of the Thebans, who marched in precise order to our right flank and settled there, resting their peculiar crimped shields on the ground against their legs.