For Polystratus (21-25)

But those men,[*] convicting themselves of guilt in advance, have taken themselves off in order to escape punishment: while any others who were guilty,—though in a less degree than they, but still guilty,—are moved by their fear at once of you and of their accusers to take the field instead of staying at home, in order that they may either mollify you or prevail on them.

The defendant, having done you no wrong, has submitted himself to justice immediately after those events, when your memory of what occurred was freshest, and he could best be put to the proof: he trusted in his own innocence and in the success which justice would award him in his trial. That he was a friend of the people, I will prove to you.

First of all, how many were the campaigns in which he served without once shirking his duty, can be told, from personal knowledge, by his fellow-townsmen. Then, when he might well have put his fortune away out of sight and refused to help you, he preferred that you should have cognizance of it, in order that, even if he chose to play the knave, he could have no chance, but must contribute to the special levies and perform his public services. He also placed us in a position to be most helpful to the State.

He sent me away to Sicily, but I was not⋯[*] to you; so the cavalry should know what kind of spirit I showed as long as the army was safe: but when it was destroyed and I escaped to Catana,[*] I used that town as a base for depredations by which I harried the enemy, so that from the spoil more than thirty minae were apportioned as the tithe for the goddess[*] and enough to deliver all the soldiers who were in the hands of the enemy.

And when the Cataneans compelled me to serve in the cavalry, I did so, and shirked no danger there either; so that everyone must know what kind of spirit I showed on service both with the cavalry and with the infantry. I will provide you with my witnesses to these facts.