Against Aristocrates (206-210)

You, men of Athens, acquit men who have committed the gravest crimes and are clearly proved guilty, if they treat you to one or two pleasantries, or if a few advocates chosen from their own tribe ask you to be so good. If ever you do bring them in guilty, you assess the penalty at five-and-twenty drachmas. In those old times the State was wealthy and splendid, but in private life no man held his head higher than the multitude.

Here is the proof: if any of you know the sort of house that Themistocles or Miltiades or any of those distinguished men of old lived in, you may observe that it is no grander than the common run of houses. On the other hand, both the structure and the equipment of their Public buildings were on such a scale and of such quality that no opportunity of surpassing them was left to coming generations. Witness those gate-houses, docks, porticoes, the great harbor, and all the edifices with which you see our city adorned.

But today every man who takes part in public life enjoys such superfluity of wealth that some of them have built private dwelling-houses more magnificent than many public buildings; and others have bought larger estates than all you people in this court possess between you; while, as for the public buildings that you put up and whitewash, I am ashamed to say how mean and shabby they are. Can you name anything that you have acquired and that you will bequeath to posterity, as they bequeathed the Chersonesus, and Amphipolis, and the glory of noble exploits? That glory citizens like these are squandering as fast as they can,—but they cannot annihilate it, men of Athens; and we know why.

In those days Aristeides had full control of the assessment of the tribute, but his own fortune was not increased by a single shilling; and when he died he was actually buried at the public expense. Whenever you wanted anything, you had more money in your treasury than any other Hellenic people, insomuch that you always started on any expedition with pay for the full period named in the decree authorizing such expedition. Now, while the administrators of public affairs have risen from poverty to affluence, and are provided with ample maintenance for a long time to come, you have not enough money laid by for a single day’s expenditure, and when something must be done, you are at once without the means of doing it. The nation was then the master, as it is now the servant, of the politicians.

The fault lies with the authors of such decrees as this, who have trained you to think very little of yourselves, and a great deal of one or two individuals. So they are the inheritors of your renown and of your possessions; you get no benefit from that inheritance! You are the witnesses of the prosperity of others, and participate in nothing but delusions. Ah, how loud would be the lamentation of those great men who laid down their lives for glory and for liberty, and left behind them the monuments of many noble achievements, if they could see how today the progress of our city has ended in the form and rank of a dependant, and that the question of the hour is—whether Charidemus is entitled to personal protection! Charidemus! Heaven help us!