Polycleitus made a mark on the wax tablet before him. “Your request is recognized, and is so granted-if the prosecution agrees to adhere to the relevant charges only.”
Aeschines put his hand on his heart. “To that, I do swear.”
“Reset the clock, please.”
III.
Has the world ever seen the like of Alexander? Was there ever a man whose endeavors were more certainly blessed by the gods? For have the Greeks not lived in fear of another Persian invasion since Xerxes was driven from our shores? Did the Greeks in Ionia, in Ephesus, Miletus, Assos, Halicarnassus, not groan under tyrants installed by Persia? Did we all not grow up, age, and die under the shadow of the monstrosity we called the Great King?
No more. The Persian Empire, the client satrapies, the danger they represented to Athens-all have been swept aside. Alexander accomplished it, and indeed did it in about the time it took our ancestors to reduce the single city of Troy. Such a feat was beyond what any of us would have dared dream before him. How long did Greeks speak of uniting at last to remove this threat? How many fine speeches were made, how many eloquent pamphlets were published? But we have seen that speeches and pamphlets cannot accomplish such labors-only men like Alexander can.
Remember that Athens fought his leadership, and in her jealousy remained an open sewer of plots and schemes while he was in Asia fighting for the Greeks. Yet we have all derived the benefits of his conquest. Never again will the Great King connive with Lacedaemonians and Illyrians and Scythians against us. Never again will the Ionian ports be closed to our trade. Never again will our grain supplies from the Black Sea be threatened from the flank. Proud Athens, can you not accept a boon so unexpectedly but so graciously delivered? Can you not rejoice?
There never was a better champion of mankind, never a brighter light among the barbarians. With Alexander, anything was possible. India trembled at his approach, and would have fallen into his hands, as no doubt would Carthage, Italy, Sicily. His empire would have stretched to both shores of the boundless Ocean, a vast common home for the Greeks that would have made our city the Queen of the World.
I say ‘would have,’ because Alexander is dead. Having understood what he accomplished, and the promise of his coming reign, you might well ask how this hero, this young god, who was so favored in Heaven, could have died in a manner so untimely, at the age of thirty-two. You might wonder whether the hand of weak, petty Man was implicated in the murder of the future. And you might ask, what does all this have to do with our friend Machon? What, exactly, was the nature of his impiety? Listen, then, and I will tell you.
Machon was present at Chaeronea. Of his conduct there, I have no independent report, except that he was captured and, at the mercy of Philip, was returned to Athens along with two thousand other prisoners. Upon his release, an inquiry was conducted on the reasons for the defeat. As one of the senior officers to survive that sad day, Machon appeared before the subcommittee of the Assembly. His testimony was most remarkable. We have his whole speech here-it is a tedious document, too long to read today, which is unfortunate because it says much about the character of the man. At its essence it is a tissue of rancorous, unsubstantiated accusations, blaming the disaster on our generals, our soldiers, our equipment, our allies, in short, on everything and everyone except Machon himself. There is one section, however, that is most relevant to the charges under consideration. Please read it.
The clerk took up the transcript. “For the reasons I have described, it will be most difficult to defeat this enemy. Our city cannot make the changes necessary to meet the Macedonians on equal terms, such as foundation of a permanent, professional army, as this would require changes in our system of government that would be repugnant to the citizenry. In the future, more subtle methods than direct confrontation will have to be employed, if this chronic threat to Athens is to be removed. I pledge myself ready to assist in this project in any way I can.”
Aeschines turned to address Machon directly.
It is a continual wonder how some men roar with courage in peacetime, but bleat with pessimism at the first reverse. What do you mean, Machon, that Athens cannot meet the enemy on equal terms? Do you impugn the courage of our fallen comrades? Can the sons of Erechtheus fight only with fennel stalks? Do they bleed breast milk? This claim of Athens’s inferiority should embarrass you, as it did the committee, which rejected your outburst.
Note the key phrase. He says “more subtle methods than direct confrontation will have to be employed, if this threat to Athens is to be removed.” What can this mean? What other method, other than the clash of arms on the battlefield, would be worthy of men? Are we to resort to womanish scheming at the first reverse? To be sure, I doubt that anyone took his words seriously-they could not, in fact, because Machon was not punished for his foolishness.
The inspiration for Machon’s brave call for subterfuge is not hard to guess. Shortly after, Demosthenes went around the city boasting he had a vision directly from Zeus that Philip had died. Such a partisan invocation of a god would have seemed merely typical of the man’s inveterate selfishness, and dismissed as such, until word reached Athens that, indeed, Philip had been assassinated. As the King entered the theatre at Aigai on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding, he was stabbed by a retainer. All Greece was stunned by the news. Leaving aside the proposition that Zeus signals his intentions to Demosthenes alone, how he happened to learn of this event before anyone else in the city-even before mounted messengers could reach Attica-is a mystery. But in light of Machon’s call for underhanded tactics against Philip, Demosthenes’ connivance in his murder makes perfect sense.
On the death of his father, Alexander was bequeathed a kingdom whose rule would have challenged the powers of any mortal man. It stretched from the banks of the Danube to Thessaly, and from the Balkans to Byzantium. Thinking the new king, a mere youth of twenty, could not match the skill and determination of the old, opportunists incited rebellions among the tribes of Illyria, and in Greece proper, among the Thebans and here in Attica. What shame will ever adhere to this cynical enterprise-that civilized men of Thebes and Athens, who had duly sworn to respect the leadership of the King in Pella, would attach the fate of Athens to skin-clad barbarians! For had we not agreed, as did all the cities of Greece except Sparta, to aid Philip in his plan to humble the Great King? The pact was made in Corinth, shortly after Chaeronea. Read the terms of the pact, please.
The clerk read the terms.
Take note of the parties stipulated in the agreement. It says, the Greeks will respect the captaincy of Philip and his descendants. Could anything be more clear? Could any perfidy be more obvious than the course urged by the anti-Macedonians, who managed again to put Athens on a war-footing, on course for another disaster? Note that the purpose of Corinth alliance was to avenge Greece against the Persians. It demanded nothing of Athens, no booty, no levies, no garrison in our city. Philip expected only our trustworthiness, which one would think would be the least onerous demand on honest men. But instead, Demosthenes, Hypereides, Charidemos and their rabble seduced the Assembly with talk of overthrowing ‘the Boy,’ of marching all the way to Pella!
What hubris! What rubbish! And with what dismay did these cowards watch as Alexander wasted no time in reducing the Illyrians: not only did he defeat their forces within the boundaries of his kingdom, but he contrived to float his army across the Danube on skin boats and exact the pledges of the tribes beyond. Was this not impressive campaigning for a mere boy?