Against Callimachus (48-50)

on the contrary, all through that period he continued to evade service and to keep his property in concealment. But when the Thirty came to power, then it was that he sailed back to Athens. And although he professes to be a friend of the people, yet he was so much more eager than anybody else to participate in the oligarchical government that, even though it meant hardship, he saw fit not to depart, but preferred to be besieged in company with those who had injured him rather than to live as a citizen with you, who likewise had been wronged by them.

And he remained as a participant in their government until that day on which you were on the point of attacking the walls of Athens; then he left the city, not because he had come to hate the present regime, but because he was afraid of the danger which threatened, as he later made evident. For when the Lacedaemonians came and the democracy was shut up in the Piraeus,[*] again he fled from there and resided among the Boeotians; it is far more fitting, therefore, that his name should be enrolled in the list of the deserters than that he should be called one of the “exiles.”

And although he has proved to be a man of such character by his conduct toward the people who occupied the Piraeus, toward those who remained in the city, and toward the whole state, he is not content to be on equal terms with the others, but seeks to be treated better than you, as if either he alone had suffered injury, or was the best of the citizens, or had met with the gravest misfortunes on your account, or had been the cause of the most numerous benefits to the city.