Indeed, there is no danger, no danger whatsoever, that requires more anxious vigilance than allowing any man to become stronger than the people. Let no man be delivered, and let no man be destroyed, merely because this man or that so desires; let hem who is delivered or destroyed by the evidence of facts be entitled to receive from this court the verdict that is his due. That is the democratic principle. Furthermore, at Athens many men have upon occasion risen to power—the great Callistratus, for instance, Aristophon, Diophantus, and others of earlier date. But what was the field of their supremacy? The popular assembly. In courts of justice no man to this day has ever been superior to the people, or to the laws, or to the judicial oath. Then permit no such superiority to Aeschines today. To enforce the warning that it is better to take those precautions than to be credulous, I will read to you an oracle of the gods,—to whom Athens owes her salvation far more than to her most prominent politicians. Read the oracles. (The Oracles are read) Men of Athens , you hear the admonitions of the gods. If they are addressed to you in time of war, they bid you beware of your commanders, for commanders are the leaders of warfare; if after conclusion of peace, of your statesmen, for they are your leaders, they have your obedience, by them you may haply be deceived. The oracle also bids you keep the commonwealth together, that all may be of one mind, and may not gratify the enemy. What do you think, men of Athens ? Will Philip be gratified by the deliverance or by the punishment of the man who has done all this mischief? By his deliverance surely; but the oracle bids you strive that the enemy shall not rejoice. Therefore, you are all exhorted by Zeus, by Dione, by all the gods, to punish with one mind those who have made themselves the servants of your enemies. There are foes without; there are traitors within. It is the business of foes to give bribes, of traitors to take bribes, and to rescue those who have taken them. Moreover, it can be shown by mere human reasoning that it is extremely injurious and dangerous to permit the intimacy of a prominent statesman with men whose purposes are at variance with those of the people. If you will consider by what means Philip acquired his political supremacy and performed his most signal achievements, you will find that it was by buying treachery from willing sellers, and by corrupting leading politicians and stimulating their ambition.