Against Callimachus (61-65)

And finally, when Lysander[*] proclaimed that if anyone should import grain to you he would be punished with death, we were so zealous for the city’s welfare that, although no one else dared to bring in even his own, we intercepted the grain that was being brought in to them and discharged it at the Piraeus. In recognition of these services you voted that we should be honored with crowns, and that in front of the statues of the eponymous heroes[*] we should be proclaimed as the authors of great blessings.

Yet surely men who should now be regarded as friends of the people are not those who, when the people were in power, were eager to participate in affairs, but those who, when the state was suffering misfortune, were willing to brave the first dangers in your behalf, and gratitude is due, not to him who has suffered personal hardships, but to him who has conferred benefits upon you; and in the case of those who have become poor, pity should be felt, not for those who have lost their property, but for those who have spent their fortune for your good.

Of these last named it will be found that I have been one; and I should be the most miserable of all men, if, after I have spent much of my fortune for the good of the city, it should be thought that I plot against the property of others, and that I care naught for your poor opinion of me; when it is obvious that I set less store, not merely on my property, but even on my life, than on your good opinion.

Who among you would not feel remorse, even if not immediately, yet soon hereafter, if you should see the calumniator enriched, but me despoiled even of that which I left remaining when serving you as trierarch: and if you should see this man, who never even ran a risk on your behalf, influential enough to override both the laws and the covenant of Amnesty,

and me, who have been so zealous in serving the state, adjudged unworthy of obtaining even my just rights? And who would not reproach you, if, cajoled by the words of Callimachus, you should find me of such baseness, you who, when you judged us on the strength of our deeds, crowned us for our bravery at a time when it was not so easy as it is now to win that honor?