Against Philon (11-15)

But those who acted thus by design merit no indulgence, since their conduct was due not to mishap, but to policy. It is a custom accepted as just among all mankind that in face of the same crimes we should be most incensed with those men who are most able to avoid criminal action, but should be indulgent to the poor or disabled because we regard their offences as involuntary.

This man, therefore, deserves no indulgence; for neither was he disabled and thus unfit for hardship, as you see for yourselves, nor did he lack means for the public services, as I shall establish. If, then, he was as backward as he was able to help, how should he not hated with good reason by you all?

Nor indeed will you incur the enmity of any of the citizens if you reject him; for it is by no means one party, but both, that he has manifestly betrayed, so that he can claim friendship neither with those who were in the town (for he did not think fit to stand by them in their peril), nor with those who occupied the Peiraeus, since he did not consent to return even with them; and that, too, when he was, as he asserts, a townsman![*]

But if there yet remains a party of the citizens that had a share in his proceedings, if ever—may Heaven forfend it!—they get the city into their hands, let him claim his seat on the Council with them.

Witnesses