ORATION ON THE CROWN 427
roofs : ^ no, not I ! Neither is it on deeds like these that I plume myself. But would you justly estimate my outworks, you will find armaments and cities, and settlements, and harbors, and fleets, and cavalry, and armies raised to defend us : — these are the defences that I drew around Attica, as far as human prudence could defend her, and with such outworks as these I fortified the country at large, not the mere circuit of the arsenal ^ and the city ! Nor was it I that suc- cumbed to Philip's policy and his arms ; very far otherwise ! but the captains and the forces of your allies yielded to his fortune. What are the proofs of it? They are manifest and plain, and you shall see them. For what was the part of a patriotic citizen ? What the part of him who would serve his country with all earnestness, and zeal, and honesty of purpose ? W^as it not to cover Attica, on the seaboard with Euboea — '- in- land with Boeotia — on Peloponnesus, with the adjoin- ing territories ? Was it not to provide for making the corn trade secure, that every coast our ships sailed along till they reached the Piraeus might be friendly to us ? Was it not to save some points of our do- minion, such as Proconnesus, the Chersonese, Tene- dos, by dispatching succors, and making the necessary statements, and proposing the fit decrees? Was it not to secure from the first the cooperation and alli- ance of other states, Byzantium, Abydos, Euboea? Was it not to wrest from the enemy his principal forces ? Was it not to sujjply what this country most wanted ? Then all these things were effected by my
^ I. e., the defences which Demosthenes threw around Athens, and for which he claims glory, were not mere walls of stone or hrick, — though as commissioner he had erected such walls for the city.
^ The Piraeus, the chief harbor of Athens, about five miles from the City.
