Against Aristocrates (136-140)

Cotys expected to rob Iphicrates of honors, of maintenance, of statues, of the country that made him a man to be envied, I may almost say of everything that made life worth living; yet he had no scruple. But, really, what is there of which this man should be anxious not to deprive Charidemus? He has no possessions whatsoever in your city,—neither children, nor a statue, nor kindred, nor anything else.

If Cersobleptes is by nature not a man of his word, if he is justly distrusted because of his past behavior, and if there is nothing in the political situation that should induce him, even against his judgement and his character, to promote the welfare of Charidemus, for what reason should we, in sheer absolute stupidity, help him to accomplish his desires, even to our own detriment? I see no reason.

Apart then from the fact that this decree does not further our policy, you must be warned that, as regards reputation also, it does not further the interest of our city to be known to have enacted anything of the sort. If, men of Athens, the decree had been made for the benefit of a man dwelling in a free state, and living under its laws as a free citizen, it would have been less discreditable, though still unwarranted; but in fact it has been made for Charidemus, a man not domiciled in any free state at all, but commanding an army for a Thracian and an autocrat, and maltreating people by royal authority.

You cannot but know how all these mercenary officers seize upon free Hellenic cities, and try to dominate them. They march about through country after country as the common enemies, if the truth must be told, of every man whose wish is to reside constitutionally and as a free man in his own fatherland. Men of Athens, is it creditable to you, is it dignified, that you should be known to have carried a measure for the protection of a fellow who, to satisfy his greed, is ready to fall foul of anybody who comes his way, and to have given notice of expulsion from your alliance to the defenders of their own independence?

For my part, I cannot regard such action as consistent with your honor or your good fame. It must be discreditable, first to denounce the Lacedaemonians for giving written licence to the King of Persia to do what he likes to the Hellenic inhabitants of Asia,[*] and then to put European Hellenes, and everybody whom Charidemus thinks he can overpower, at the mercy of Cersobleptes. And that is precisely the effect of this decree, when no distinction is drawn as to what his general may or may not do, but when all who resist his attacks are menaced with such terrors.