Against Lochites (11-12)

Lochites is one of these persons. For even though he was too young to have belonged to the oligarchy established at that time, yet his character at any rate is in harmony with their regime. For it was men of like disposition who betrayed our power to the enemy, razed the walls of the fatherland, and put to death without a trial fifteen hundred citizens.[*]

We may reasonably expect that you, remembering the past, will punish, not only those who then did us harm, but also those who wish now to bring our city into the same condition as then; and you should punish potential criminals with greater severity than the malefactors of the past in so far as it is better to find how to avert future evils than to exact the penalty for past misdeeds.