Against Alcibiades (31-36)

Alcibiades, whose authority extends over all our allies and who receives monies from them, is not liable to answer for any of his public acts; on the contrary, after behaving as I have described, he was rewarded with free entertainment in the Prytaneum[*]; and not content with that, he is for ever taking credit for his victory, as though he had not so much brought Athens into disgrace as won her a garland of honour. Only reflect, and you will find that men who have given way even temporarily to any single one of the excesses in which Alcibiades has indulged time and again, have brought ruin upon their houses; yet Alcibiades, whose entire life is devoted to extravagance, has doubled his wealth.

You regard as misers those who are niggardly and close-fisted; but you are mistaken. It is the spendthrift, with his endless wants, who stoops lowest to fill his pockets. In fact, it will be a public disgrace, if you show tolerance towards a man who has achieved his success only with the help of your money, when in ostracizing Callias, son of Didymius, who won victories at all the great games by his personal prowess, you took no account whatsoever of his achievement, although it was by his own efforts that he brought glory to Athens.

Then again, remember how steadfast, how true to their principles your fathers showed themselves, when they ostracized Cimon for breaking the law by taking his own sister to wife[*]; and yet not only was Cimon himself an Olympic victor; his father, Miltiades, had been one likewise. Nevertheless, they took no account of his victories; for it was not by his exploits at the games, but by his manner of life that they judged him.

Furthermore, if account is to be taken of our families, I on my side cannot claim any acquaintance with ostracism. No one could show that any kinsman of mine has ever had the misfortune to suffer it. Alcibiades, on the other hand, knows more of it than any other member of the community. His mother’s father, Megacles, and his father’s father, Alcibiades, were both ostracized twice; so it will be neither surprising nor unnatural if he receives the same treatment as his ancestors. Indeed, not even Alcibiades himself would venture to maintain that they, the worst miscreants of their time though they were, did not have more regard for decency and honesty than he himself; for no one in the world could frame an accusation which would do justice to his misdeeds.

Moreover, the legislator who instituted ostracism appears to me to have had the following intention. Observing that whenever members of the community are more powerful than the magistrates and the laws, it is impossible for an individual to obtain redress from them, he arranged that punishment for their misdeeds should be exacted by the state. Now I myself have been publicly tried four times, and have never prevented any private person who so desired from bringing me to justice. On the other hand, Alcibiades, who has worked such mischief, has never yet dared to answer for it in any way whatsoever.

So forbidding is he that instead of punishing him for the wrongs which he has done already, men fear him for what he will do hereafter; and while it pays his victims to suffer in silence, he himself is not satisfied unless he can work his will in the future also. Yet I hardly deserve to be ostracized, gentlemen, if I do not deserve to be put to death[*]; and if I was acquitted when brought to trial, I cannot deserve to be sent into exile when no trial has taken place; nor after vindicating myself so many times in court can I be thought to merit banishment on the same grounds of accusation again.