Against Demosthenes (36-40)

and walked about dangling it from his finger ends, living in luxury during the city's misfortunes, travelling down the road to the Piraeus in a litter and reproaching the needy for their poverty. Is this man then going to prove useful to you on future occasions, when he has let slip every opportunity in the past? By our lady Athena and Zeus the Savior, I could wish that the enemies of Athens had lighted upon counsellors and leaders like him and never better.

Let me remind you, gentlemen, of the conduct of your forbears, who, at a time when many grave perils beset the city, faced danger in the interests of the people, in a manner worthy of their country and their well-earned reputation, as befitted free men. Time does not permit me to deal with those figures of the past, Aristides and Themistocles: the men who built the city's walls and carried up to the Acropolis the tribute paid by the willing and even eager Greeks.

But you will recall what was done, shortly before our own time, by Cephalus the orator, Thrason of Herchia, Eleus and Phormisius and other fine men, some of whom are still alive today.[*] Some of them, when the Cadmea was garrisoned by Spartans, assisted the exiles who returned to Thebes and at their own risk set free a neighboring city, long enslaved.[*]

Others lent aid when your ancestors were persuaded to take the field by Cephalus, who proposed the decree and who, undaunted by the might of Sparta and regardless of the risks either of military or political action, moved that the Athenians should march out to help the exiles who had taken Thebes. Your fathers did march out and in a few days the commander of the Spartan garrison was expelled, the Thebans had been freed and your city had acted worthily of your ancestors.

They were counsellors, Athenians, they were leaders such as yourselves and the state deserve. How different from rogues like this who neither have done nor will do the city any service but watch over their own safety and treat everything as a source of income. They have made the city more infamous than themselves, and now, convicted of taking bribes against you, they deceive you and presume, after conduct such as this, to talk to you about their own aggrandizement. They ought, by the terms of their own decree, to have been put to death long ago for doing such things.