Demosthenes On the False Embassy 65

[65] but from the deeds that have been wrought—a spectacle, men of Athens , to move us to terror and pity indeed! Not long ago, when we were travelling to Delphi , necessity compelled us to look upon that scene—homesteads levelled with the ground, cities stripped of their defensive walls, a countryside all emptied of its young men; only women, a few little children, and old men stricken with misery. No man could find words adequate to the woes that exist in that country today. And yet these are the people—you take the words out of my mouth—these are the people who in the day of our trial ¹ openly cast their vote against the Thebans, when the question was the enslavement of us all!