Against Aristogiton (17)

Secondly, they provided in the laws for indictments for bribery, and this is the only offence for which they imposed a payment equal to ten times the assessment of damages,[*]in the belief that one who is ready to be paid for the opinions which he is going to express in the Assembly has at heart, when he is speaking, not the interests of the people but the welfare of those who have paid him. Now the council has reported Aristogiton as guilty of this. Moreover, when choosing a man for public office they used to ask what his personal character was, whether he treated his parents well, whether he had served the city in the field, whether he had an ancestral cult or paid taxes.