Against Epicrates and his Fellow-envoys (6-10)

But at present they find it quite safe to rob you. For if they are not detected, they will be able to enjoy their booty without fear; while if they are caught, they either buy off the prosecution with part of their ill-gotten gains, or save themselves, on being brought to trial, by their own ability. So this is the moment, gentlemen of the jury, for you to make an example that will ensure the honesty of the rest, by doing justice upon these men.

All who are in the administration of the State have come here, not to listen to us, but to know what view you will take of the guilty. Hence if you acquit these men, they will think that there is nothing to fear from deceiving you and making a profit at your expense; but if you condemn them, and sentence them to death, by that same vote you will make the rest more orderly than they are now, and you will have done justice upon these men.

And I conceive, men of Athens, that even if you decided, without putting them on trial or consenting to hear their defence, to condemn them to the extreme penalty, they would not have perished unjudged, but would have paid the suitable penalty. For those men are not unjudged on whom you have given your verdict with a knowledge of the acts that have been committed, but only those who, traduced by their enemies in matters of which you have no knowledge, fail to get a hearing. These men are accused by the facts: we are merely the witnesses against them.

I have no fear that, if you hear them, you will acquit them; but I consider that they would not have paid the penalty they deserved if you condemned them only after having heard them. Could it be so, gentlemen, when they have not even the same interests as you? During the war these men have advanced themselves from poverty to wealth at your expense, while you are in poverty because of them.

Yet surely it is the duty of true leaders of the people not to take your property in the stress of your misfortunes, but to give their own property to you. And here we have come to such a pass that those who formerly, in the period of peace, were unable even to support themselves, are now contributing to your special levies, producing dramas and dwelling in great houses.