Against Epicrates and his Fellow-envoys (1-5)

They are none the less deficient today; so that through their act the suffering and the disgrace fall to you, and the profit to them.[*] For they have found by experiment that, whenever they and their speeches seem likely to induce you to give your votes against justice, they easily obtain money from the guilty parties.

Yet what hope of safety can be ours, when the preservation or the ruin of the city depends on money, and when these men, —the guardians that you have set up, your chastisers of the guilty,—both rob you and do anything for bribes? And this is not the first time that they have been caught in criminal acts: they have been tried before now for taking bribes.

And here I have to reproach you for having convicted Onomasas[*] and acquitted this man of the same crime, although it was the same person who accused them all, and they were opposed by the same witnesses; who had not been told by others, but were the very persons who arranged with these men about the money and the gifts.

Yet you are all aware that it is not by chastising men who are not able to speak that you will make an example to deter men from wronging you, but that by doing justice upon those who are able you will cause everyone to cease attempting to commit offences against you.