This, at least, is my own exhortation to you; and you should know that, if you take my advice, you will decide wisely for yourselves, but if not, you will find the rest of the citizens more unruly. Besides, men of Athens, if you acquit them, they will not be thankful to you, but to their expenditure and to the funds that they have embezzled; so that, while you endow yourselves with their enmity, they will thank those means for their salvation.

Furthermore, men of Athens, both the people of Halicarnassus and the other victims of these men, if you inflict the extreme penalty upon them, will feel that, although they have been ruined by these persons, they have been vindicated by you; but if you save their lives, they will suppose that you have put yourselves in accord with their betrayers. So, bearing all these points in mind, you ought by the same act to show your gratitude to your friends and to do justice upon the guilty.