Against Demosthenes (6-10)

Though this investigation has been conducted, in the people's opinion, both fairly and profitably, accusations, challenges, and calumnies are proceeding from Demosthenes, since he has been listed as the holder of twenty talents of gold. Will that council then which, in cases of willful] murder, is trustworthy enough to arrive at truth and justice and is empowered to pass judgement in matters of life and death on each of the citizens, to take up the cause of those who have met a violent end and banish or execute any in the city who have broken the law,[*] be powerless now to administer justice over the money credited to Demosthenes?

It will; for the council has told lies against Demosthenes. This is the crowning argument in his case. It has told lies, has it, against you and Demades: men against whom it is evidently not even safe to speak the truth; though you previously instructed the Areopagus to investigate many public matters and expressed approval of it for the inquiries which it had held? Are the indictments which the council has made against these men false when the whole city cannot compel them to do right? Great Heavens!

Then why, Demosthenes, did you agree in the Assembly to a penalty of death for yourself, if the report of the council should turn out against you? And why have you yourself ruined many others by insisting on the findings of the council? To what authority should the people now refer, or to whom should it entrust the inquiry in the event of mysterious or momentous crimes, if it is to discover the truth?

For the council which formerly commanded confidence is being discredited by you, who claim to be the people's man, though it is a body to which the people gave in trust the protection of their lives, to whose charge they have often committed their constitution and democracy, a council which, destined though you were to malign it, has safeguarded your life, according to your own account so often threatened, and which keeps the mystic deposits[*] whereby the safety of the city is preserved.

Now in one respect—for I shall speak my mind—the Areopagus fully deserves this treatment. It was faced with two alternatives. One would have been, in accordance with the people's instructions, to conduct the previous investigation over the three hundred talents which came from the Persian king[*]; in which case this monster would have been convicted and the names of those who shared the money published; the betrayal of Thebes, for which Demosthenes was responsible,[*] would have been exposed, and we, exacting from this demagogue the punishment he deserved, would have been rid of him.