3
Now if you were asked, men of Athens, what form of compulsion would most rouse your indignation, I think that if the sons of PisistratusHippias and his family were driven from Athens by the help of the Spartans in 510. had been alive at the present time and someone tried to compel you to restore them, you would snatch up your weapons and brave any danger rather than receive them back, or if you did consent, you would be slaves, as surely as if you had been bought for money; nay, more so, inasmuch as no one would intentionally kill his own servant, but the victims of tyranny may be seen executed without trial, as well as outraged in the persons of their wives and children.
4
Therefore when Alexander, contrary to the oaths and the compacts as set forth in the general peace, restored those tyrants, the sons of Philiades,Tyrant of Messene in the time of Philip. His sons, Neon and Thrasymachus, were expelled but restored by Alexander. Polybius, himself an Arcadian, born a century and a half later, enters a vigorous protest against Demosthenes’ condemnation of these and other traitors in Dem. 18.295, and claims that they had rendered valuable service in freeing the Peloponnesian states from the yoke of Sparta and ensuring their prosperity under the aegis of Macedonia (Polybius 17.14.). to Messene, had he any regard for justice? Did he not rather give play to his own tyrannical disposition, showing little regard for you and the joint agreement.
