Exordia (45.4-46.2)

I do not think you are naturally inferior to the Thebans—I should be mad to say that—only less well prepared. What I do say is that now is the time to begin your preparation, since you have been negligent up to now, not the decisive struggle. For I am not speaking against the plan as a whole but I am opposed to your way of going about it.

You have all seen, men of Athens, with what zest the ambassadors[*] have denounced our city. For, apart from what I cannot imagine, they have attempted to lay all offences at your doors. I admit, if their charges were true, you might reasonably be grateful that they were thus denouncing you to your faces instead of to others;

but since they have used the privilege of speaking here to distort the truth, failing to mention some things from which you would justly derive great praise, and making charges that are false and inapplicable to you, it is right that you should consider them unprincipled, when once they have been proved guilty of such conduct as this. For if they prefer to be regarded as accomplished rhetoricians rather than truly fair-minded men, it is not likely that even they themselves would claim to be gentlemen.