Against Aristocrates (121-125)

But why need one talk about the other instances? Take Philip, who is now accounted our very worst enemy. At the time when, having caught some of our citizens in the act of trying to restore Argaeus, he released them and made good all their losses, when he professed in a written message that he was ready to form an alliance with us, and to renew his ancestral amity, if at that time he had asked us for this favour, and if one of the men he had released had proposed that whoever shall kill Philip should be liable to seizure, a fine insult we should have had to swallow!

Do you not see, gentlemen, do you not understand, how you would have been chargeable with sheer lunacy in every one of these instances, if you had carried by vote any such resolution as this? I say it is not the part of sane men either to put such confidence in a man, whenever they imagine him to be friendly, as to deprive themselves of all defence against possible aggression, or, on the other hand, when they regard anyone as an enemy, to hate him so fiercely that, if he ever wants to reform and be their friend, they have taken it out of his power to do so. But we should, I think, carry both our friendship and our hatred only so far as not to exceed the due measure in either case.

For my part, I cannot see why everybody who has any sort of claim to be your benefactor should not expect to get this favour, if you bestow it upon Charidemus,—Simon, for example, if you want a name, or Bianor, or Athenodorus, or thousands more. No; if we make the same decree in favour of the whole company, we shall unconsciously make ourselves a bodyguard for every one of them, like jobbing mercenaries; but if we do it for one but not for another, those who are disappointed will have a right to complain.

Now just suppose that Menestratus of Eretria were to require us to make the same decree for him, or Phayllus of Phocis, or any other autocrat,—and I need not say that we often make friends, to serve our occasions, with many such people,—are we to vote decrees for all of them, or are we not? You say, Yes. Then what decent excuse shall we have, men of Athens, if, while asserting ourselves as the champions of all Hellas in the cause of liberty, we make our appearance as yeomen of the guard to men who maintain troops on their own account to keep down the populace?

If we ought, though I say we ought not, to grant such a favour to anyone, let it be even in the first instance to the man who has never done us wrong; secondly, to the man who will never have the power, though he have the will, to injure us; and finally the man who is known by everyone to be seeking it for his own protection, and not in the hope of maltreating his neighbors with impunity—it is to him truly that it should be given. I will spare you the proof that Charidemus is neither a man void of offence towards us, nor one who, for his own safety, tries to win your support; but I do ask you to listen to me when I declare that he is not even one who can be trusted for the future, and to consider carefully whether my argument is sound.