Demosthenes - Phillipics (4th cent. BC)

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  • Soldier of Macedon
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 13670

    Demosthenes - Phillipics (4th cent. BC)

    Here is a summary of the main points present in the Phillipic speeches of the famous Greek orator from Athens, Demosthenes. The Phillipics consist mainly of anti-Macedonian rhetoric, in an era where Greece's very liberty and way of life was dangerously threatened by the Macedonians under their strong king, Phillip II.

    Athens, the leading city-state of Greece, feared the Macedonian movement from the north.
    Could there be any news more startling than that a Macedonian is triumphing over Athenians and settling the destiny of Hellas? (Phillipics 1-10)
    As has been established as a well known fact, the Macedonian King Phillip II caused utter destruction in Greece and to Greeks.
    If, then, we were all agreed that Philip is at war with Athens and is violating the peace, the only task of a speaker would be to come forward and recommend the safest and easiest method of defence; but since some of you are in such a strange mood that, though Philip is seizing cities, and retaining many of your possessions, and inflicting injury on everybody, you tolerate some speakers who repeatedly assert in the Assembly that the real aggressors are certain of ourselves, we must be on our guard and set this matter right. (Phillipics 3-6)
    I observe, however, that all men, and you first of all, have conceded to him something which has been the occasion of every war that the Hellenes have ever waged. And what is that? The power of doing what he likes, of calmly plundering and stripping the Hellenes one by one, and of attacking their cities and reducing them to slavery. (Phillipics 3-22)
    The harm inflicted by Athenians or Spartans on other Greeks was at least done by true born sons of Greece........
    Ay, and you know this also, that the wrongs which the Hellenes suffered from the Lacedaemonians or from us, they suffered at all events at the hands of true-born sons of Hellas, and they might have been regarded as the acts of a legitimate son, born to great possessions, who should be guilty of some fault or error in the management of his estate: so far he would deserve blame and reproach, yet it could not be said that it was not one of the blood, not the lawful heir who was acting thus. (Phillipics 3-30)
    However........
    But if some slave or superstitious bastard had wasted and squandered what he had no right to, heavens! how much more monstrous and exasperating all would have called it! Yet they have no such qualms about Philip and his present conduct, though he is not only no Hellene, nor related to the Hellenes, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honor, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave. (Phillipics 3-31)
    Phillip II of Macedon does not fall in that category. He is neither a Greek, but not even related to the Greeks.

    Yet what is wanting to crown his insolence? Not content with the destruction of cities, is he not organizing the Pythian games, the common festival of the Hellenes, and if he cannot be present in person, sending his menials to act as stewards? Is he not master of Thermopylae and the passes into Hellas, holding those places with his garrisons and his mercenaries? Has he not the right of precedence at the Oracle, ousting us and the Thessalians and the Dorians and the rest of the Amphictyons from a privilege which not even all Hellenic states can claim? (Phillipics 3-32)
    So our ancestors thought that they were bound to consider the welfare of all Hellenes, for except on that assumption bribery and corruption in the Peloponnese would be no concern of theirs; and in chastising and punishing all whom they detected, they went so far as to set the offenders' names on a pillar. The natural result was that the Hellenic power was dreaded by the barbarian, not the barbarian by the Hellenes. But that is no longer so. For that is not your attitude towards these and other offences. (Phillipics 3-45)
    Therefore, as the Hellenes in every city are divided into these two parties--the one desiring neither to rule others by force nor to be slaves to any man, but to enjoy liberty and equality under a free constitution; the other eager to rule their fellow-countrymen, but to take their orders from some third person, who they think will enable them to compass their ends--Philip's faction, those who hanker after tyrannies and oligarchies, have everywhere gained the supremacy, and I doubt whether of all the states there is any stable democracy left except our own. (Phillipics 4-4)
    Pretty straight forward, Demosthenes echoed the sentiment of any free-thinking Greek at the time, the Macedonians were a barbarian nation of non-Greek origins that were enslaving Greece. And enslave her they did.
    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.
  • makedonin
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 1668

    #2
    Good compilation.

    The last I read about Demostenes is from a maggot on maknews who tried to dispute his speeches with the argument that he was bribed by the Persian.

    I don't know how true is this statement, but it ain't changes much of the truth that Demostenes views were common among the Greeks.
    To enquire after the impression behind an idea is the way to remove disputes concerning nature and reality.

    Comment

    • Risto the Great
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 15658

      #3
      Originally posted by makedonin View Post
      Good compilation.

      The last I read about Demostenes is from a maggot on maknews who tried to dispute his speeches with the argument that he was bribed by the Persian.
      No way.
      The Jews did it, the USA used a time machine to influence some Jews to sell some cheap watches to Demosthenes.
      Risto the Great
      MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
      "Holding my breath for the revolution."

      Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

      Comment

      • Pelister
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 2742

        #4
        References to Phillip and his Macedonians as "barbarians" comes to the fore once again.

        I recently watched the propoganda movie "Alexander" by Oliver Stone, and throughout that movie Oliver Stone has put in references to the term "barbarian", except that its not the Greeks calling the Macedonians barbarians, which would be historically accurate, he has rather falsely and deceptively got the Macedonians in the movie calling everyone else 'barbarians'. Its fked up.

        Comment

        • makedonin
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 1668

          #5
          The movie is a stupid as it get's. At one point, Philip say's: "I have waited all to long, but finally I can see a Greek bow before Macedonian"...... And than in the big fight against Persia, Alexander yells "For the Glory of Greece"

          Barbarian to the core......... like the Macedonians gave a sh!t about Greece......

          stupid movie..

          Another stupidity, Aristoteles teaches Alexander, and on the map on the ground you see the Present day Greek Borders as one unity, not a inch lesser or bigger.

          In reality, those borders which are now Greek, were non existent in the Ancient times... There are enough maps and descriptions to prove it............

          but like the movie makers did care about it.
          Last edited by makedonin; 03-25-2009, 04:17 AM.
          To enquire after the impression behind an idea is the way to remove disputes concerning nature and reality.

          Comment

          • Pelister
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 2742

            #6
            The other thing is this.

            The ancient writers clearly new who the Greeks in Alexanders army were (such as Eumenes), so what does this say about the rest of Alexanders Army?

            The whole movie is fked up. I think its a pretty signficant ommission that there were 50,000 Greeks fighting for the Persians, and none fighting for the Macedonians - and importantly, once Darius had fled the scene, the only ones to stay and confront the Macedonians to the bitter end, were 50,000 Greeks.

            Alexander, by all indications, fking hated the Greeks - this idea he loved them, is a modern one, and its false, but it serves a political purpose.

            There is one more thing - its obscure, but very significant I think. In Bactria, Alexander was informed that there was a village/town there that was Greek. He levelled it and killed all of its inhabitants, because it was Greek.

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