Against Demosthenes (106-110)

Will you disregard all that has passed and acquit the first man up before you? Will you, with full power at your command, reject what seemed just both to the people and the Areopagus, and indeed to everyone, and take upon yourselves these men's depravity?

Or will you, for the city's sake, give a demonstration to all alike of the hatred you bear towards traitors and those who, through love of gain, betray the people's interests? All this now lies in your control, and the fifteen hundred of you hold the city's safety in your hands. Your verdict of today will either bring to Athens great security, if you are willing to make a just decision, or else, if you endorse such practices as this, drive all men to despondency.

You must not be cowed, Athenians, or by losing your self-control give up the city's just defence, which touches all alike, in deference to Demosthenes' entreaties. For none of you compelled this man to take the money, to which he had no right, against your own interests, when he has acquired, with your assistance, much more than enough besides, nor to defend himself now when the crimes have been acknowledged and he has proposed the death penalty for himself. But the avarice and wickedness, fostered in him by his whole mode of life, have brought this on his head.

So do not be concerned when he weeps and laments. You might, with far more justice, pity the country, which this man is exposing to danger by behaving as he has, and which is begging you, who are its sons, in the names of your wives and children, to take vengeance on the traitor and save it: the land which your ancestors, after facing many noble combats for it, have handed on to you free in which many noble examples have been left us of the courage of those who gave their lives.

It is this land, Athenians, the sacrifices traditional in it, and its ancestral sepulchres to which right-thinking men must turn their thoughts when they give their vote. And when Demosthenes wishes to cheat you and cunningly turns pathetic, shedding tears, you must think of the city's person, and the glory which it once possessed, and judge between two alternatives: which has become the more deserving of pity: the city because of Demosthenes or Demosthenes because of the city?