Against Demosthenes (66-70)

What shall we say to the bystanders, Athenians, when we come out of the court, if you are deceived, as I pray you may not be, by the wizardry of this man? What will be the feelings of you all, when, on your return, you presume to look upon your fathers' hearths, after acquitting the traitor who first brought into his own home the gold of bribery; after convicting as utterly false, in both its inquiry and its conclusion, the body which all men hold in the greatest awe?

What hopes, Athenians,—picture for yourselves,—what hopes shall we have if some danger overtakes the city, when we have made it a safe thing to take bribes against one's country and have robbed of its status the body which kept watch over the city in such times of crisis?

Or again,—let us suppose this to happen,—what if Alexander, in pursuance of Demosthenes' decree,[*] sends and asks us for the gold brought into the country by Harpalus, and, over and above the fact that the council has made a report, sends down here the slaves which have now been returned to him and asks us to find out the truth from them; what in Heaven's name shall we say, gentlemen?

Will you propose, Demosthenes, that we go to war, in view of your success with the previous wars? Suppose the rest of Athens decides on this, which is fairer: for your gold to be available for war along with other people's or for others to contribute from their own property, melting down the personal ornaments of their wives, the cups and all the country's store of offerings to the gods, as you said you would suggest, though you yourself paid in fifty drachmas from your houses in Piraeus and the city? That has been your contribution under the last levy though now you have twenty talents.

Perhaps you will not advocate war but advise us to follow out the decree which you proposed and give back to Alexander the gold brought to us? If so, it will be for your sake that the people have to restore it. It is surely neither just nor fair nor democratic that those who work should contribute, while you plunder and steal; that some should make no secret of the property they hold and make contributions proportionate to it, while you who have received more than a hundred and fifty talents, either from the King's money[*] or from your association with Alexander, have no declared property in the city but have fortified yourself against the people as though you had no confidence in your own conduct of affairs.