Greek Texts & Translations

10.70Yet I observe that some of our speakers do not urge the same policy for you as for themselves; for you, they say, ought to remain quiet even when you are wronged; themselves cannot remain quiet among you, though no one does them wrong. And yet, raillery apart, suppose someone should ask, “Tell me, Aristomedes, ^note why, when you know perfectly well—for no one is ignorant of such matters—that a private station is secure and free from risk, but the life of a politician is precarious, open to attack, and full of trials and misfortunes every day, why do you not choose the quiet, sequestered life instead of the life of peril?” What would you reply? 10.71For if we should grant the truth of what would be your best possible answer, that you do all this for love of glory and renown, I wonder what earthly reason you have for thinking that you yourself ought for that object to make every exertion, facing toil and danger, whereas you advise the State to abandon such efforts in sheer indifference. For this you cannot say—that it is your duty to make a figure in the State, but that the State is of no importance in the Greek world. 10.72And there is another thing I do not see—that it is safe for the State to mind its own business, but dangerous for you if you do not go beyond your fellow-citizens in meddling with affairs. 10.73Nay, on the contrary, I do foresee the utmost danger, to you from your bustling and meddling, but to the State from its inactivity. But you may say that you have the honour of your grandfather and father to uphold, and it would be scandalous to subvert it in your person, but that the State has inherited only nameless and paltry exploits from our ancestors. But that too is untrue; for you had a thief for your father, if he was like you, but our fathers, as all the Greeks know, preserved them from the deadliest perils. 10.74But indeed there are some whose management both of private and of public business is neither fair nor constitutional; for how is it fair that some of these men, just released from jail, should be ignorant of their own worth, while that state, which was once the champion of the rest and maintained the pre-eminence, should now be sunk in all dishonour and humiliation?

10.75Therefore, though there is much that I could say on many topics, I will forbear; for indeed it is not, I think, lack of speeches either now or at any other time that is the cause of our distress, but when you have listened to the right sort of arguments, and when you are unanimous as to their validity, you sit on and give equal attention to those who wish to overthrow and distort them. It is not that you do not recognize these speakers, for as soon as you have seen them, you know exactly who is speaking for pay and acting as Philip's agent, and who is sincerely defending your best interests; but your aim is to find fault with these latter and, by turning the subject into ridicule and raillery, to avoid doing any part of your own duty. 10.76There you have the truth spoken with all freedom, simply in goodwill and for the best—no speech packed by flattery with mischief and deceit, and intended to put money into the speaker's pocket and the control of the State into our enemies' hands. Either, then, you must abandon these habits of yours, or you must throw the blame for all our failures on no one but yourselves.