On His Return (15-19)

I saw the uproar into which the meeting was breaking, and knew that I was lost; so I sprang at once to the hearth and laid hold of the sacred emblems. That act, and that alone, was my salvation at the time; for although I stood disgraced in the eyes of the gods,[*] they, it seems, had more pity on me than did men; when men were desirous of putting to death, it was the gods who saved my life. My subsequent imprisonment and the extent and nature of the bodily suffering to which I was subjected would take too long to describe.

It was then that I bewailed my lucklessness more bitterly than ever. When the people appeared to be hardly used, it was I who suffered in their stead; on the other hand, when they had been manifestly benefited by me, that act of service likewise threatened me with ruin.[*] Indeed I no longer had either ways or means of sustaining my hopes; everywhere I turned I saw woe in store for me. However, disheartening though my reception had been, I was no sooner a free man than my every thought was again directed to the service of this city.

You must understand, gentlemen, how far such services as mine surpass ordinary services. When citizens who hold public office add to your revenues, are they not in fact giving you what is yours already? And when those who hold military command benefit their country by some fine exploit, is it not by exposing your persons to fatigue and danger and by spending public money in addition that they render you such service as they do? Again, if they make a mistake at some point, it is not they themselves who pay for their mistake; it is you who pay for the error which was due to them.

Yet you bestow crowns on such persons and publicly proclaim them as heroes. And I will not deny that they deserve it; it is proof of signal merit to be able to render one’s country a service in any way whatsoever. But you must see that that man is far the worthiest who has the courage to expose his own life and his own goods to danger in order to confer a benefit on his fellow-countrymen.

My past services must be known to almost all of you. But the services which I am about to render, which I have, in fact, already begun to render, have been revealed in secret to only five hundred of you [,to the Council, that is to say[*]]; they, I think, are likely to make far fewer mistakes than you would be, had you to debate the matter here and now immediately after listening to my explanations. Those five hundred are considering at leisure the proposal placed before them, and they are liable to be called to account and censured by the rest of you for any mistake which they may make;