Against Androtion (16-18)

Therefore, men of Athens, seeing that warships have such weight in either scale, you nave done rightly to set this strict limit to the Council’s claim to the reward. For if they should discharge all their other duties satisfactorily, but fail to build these ships, by which we gained our power at the first and by which we retain it today, all their other services are of no avail, for it is the safety of the whole State that must be ensured for the people before every thing. Now the defendant is so obsessed with the idea that he can make any speech or proposal he wishes, that though the Council has discharged its other duties in the way that you have heard, but has not built the warships, he moved to grant them their reward.

That this is not a violation of the law, he could not possibly assert nor could you be brought to believe it. But I understand that he will put before you some such plea as this—that the Council was not to blame for the shortage of ships, but the treasurer of the shipbuilders, who absconded with two and a half talents, and so the business ended in a fiasco. But I must first express my surprise that he should have demanded a crown for the Council to reward a fiasco. I thought such honors were reserved for successes. Next, I have another consideration to put before you.

I submit that it is not fair to combine the two pleas, that the gift was not illegal and that the Council are not responsible for the lack of ships. For if it is right to give them the reward even when they have not built the ships, what need is there to say who is responsible for the omission? But if it is not right, why were the Council any the more entitled to it, because he can point to this or that man as responsible for the shortage?