For Polystratus (1-5)

He was chosen by his tribesmen for the soundness of his views in regard to his township and also towards your people: yet they accuse him of disloyalty to your people, after he has been chosen by his tribesmen, who can best discern the character of this or that person amongst them.

And what reason could he have had for courting an oligarchy? Because he was of an age to achieve success amongst you as a speaker, or because he had such bodily strength as might encourage him to commit an outrage on any of your people? But you see of what age he is: it is one that fits him rather to restrain others from such proceedings.

To be sure, if a man has been disfranchised for some misdemeanor in the past, and so has courted a change in the constitution, he may be led by his past offences to seek his personal interest; but this man had committed no such offence as might lead him to hate your people in his own interest or in that of his children. One of these was in Sicily, the others were in Boeotia; so it was no interest of theirs that he should court a change in the constitution.

They do accuse him of having held many magistracies, but nobody is able to show that he was a bad magistrate. My own opinion is that it is not men of his character who are guilty of wrong in such situations, but some holder of a few offices who has not held them for the best advantage of the city. For our city was not betrayed by her good magistrates, but by her dishonest ones.