Daily Inspiration Quote by Aeschines

Strength, for Aeschines, isn’t a mood or a muscle; it’s a civic condition. The line is built like a gate that swings shut: “for then only” narrows the definition of power to a single prerequisite, and that prerequisite isn’t charisma or conquest but obedience to a shared legal order. In a city-state where speeches were political weapons and factions rose and fell on courtroom victories, that’s not neutral advice. It’s a bid to make legitimacy synonymous with stability.

The intent is defensive. Aeschines is arguing that a polis becomes “strong” when citizens “cherish the laws” - not merely follow them grudgingly, but treat them as a collective treasure. That verb matters: it shifts law from an instrument of the powerful into something the public is emotionally invested in. The payoff is strategic. If the people can be made to love the laws, then challengers to the current order aren’t reformers; they’re “lawless men,” a category that collapses motive, method, and character into one condemnable identity.

The subtext is an Athens scarred by upheaval: oligarchic coups, popular backlashes, and the constant temptation to treat procedure as optional when the stakes feel existential. Labeling “revolutionary attempts” as lawlessness frames change itself as suspect unless it passes through approved channels. It’s rhetoric that elevates order to virtue, but it also protects whoever gets to define the law in the first place - a reminder that calls for unity often arrive when someone’s authority needs shoring up.