Greek Texts & Translations

15.25There are some among you, Athenians, who are very clever at pleading the rights of others against you, and I would just give them this piece of advice—to find something to say for your rights against others, so that they themselves may set the example of doing what is proper; since it is absurd for a man to lecture you about rights when he is not doing what is right himself, and it is not right that a citizen should have given his attention to all the arguments against you and to none in your favour. 15.26I beg you, in Heaven's name, to consider this point: why is there no man in Byzantium to dissuade his country-men from seizing Chalcedon, which belongs to the King and was once held by you, while the Byzantines have no shadow of a claim to it? Or from taking Selymbria, once an ally of yours, and making it tributary to themselves, and including it in the territory of Byzantium, contrary to all oaths and agreements which guarantee the autonomy of those cities? 15.27No one has come forward to dissuade Mausolus when he was alive, or Artemisia since his death, from seizing Cos and Rhodes and various other Greek states, which the King, their overlord, ceded by treaty to the Greeks, and for which the Greeks of those days faced many dangers and won much honor in the field. At any rate, if there is anyone to give advice to either of these powers, there are none, it seems, to profit by his advice. 15.28In my opinion it is right to restore the Rhodian democracy; yet even if it were not right, I should feel justified in urging you to restore it, when I observe what these people are doing. Why so? Because, men of Athens, if every state were bent on doing right, it would be disgraceful if we alone refused; but when the others, without exception, are preparing the means to do wrong, for us alone to make profession of right, without engaging in any enterprise, seems to me not love of right but want of courage. For I notice that all men have their rights conceded to them in proportion to the power at their disposal. 15.29I can cite an instance that is familiar to you all. The Greeks have two treaties ^note with the King, one made by our city and commended by all; and the later one made by the Lacedaemonians, which is of course condemned by all; and in these two treaties rights are diversely defined. Of private rights within a state, the laws of that state grant an equal and impartial share to all, weak and strong alike; but the international rights of Greek states are defined by the strong for the weak.

15.30Now, as you have already made up your minds to do right, you must take care that it is in your power to carry out your purpose; and it will be in your power, if you are accepted as the common champions of Greek liberty. But, inevitably, I think, it is very difficult for you to do all that is required. All other states have only their open enemies to contend with, and if they can beat them, there is nothing to hinder them from enjoying their advantage; 15.31but you, Athenians, have two struggles before you; one is the same that awaits the rest, but there is another and more serious struggle that comes before it, for you have got to defeat in your debates the faction that deliberately opposes the interests of your city. When, therefore, owing to this opposition, you can get nothing done without a struggle, the natural consequence is that you miss many advantages. 15.32If, however, there are many politicians who recklessly take up this position, perhaps the pay they receive from their employers is chiefly responsible, but nevertheless you too must bear some of the blame. For you ought to have the same feeling about the post a man occupies in politics as about the post he occupies in war. What feeling do I refer to? You consider that the man who deserts the post where his general has stationed him deserves to be disfranchised and deprived of his share in our common privileges. 15.33Then those who, by adopting oligarchical principles, abandon the post taken over by us from our ancestors, ought to be disqualified from ever giving you advice. As it is, you consider that those allies are most devoted to you who have sworn to regard your friends and your enemies as their own, but where politicians are concerned, you take as your most trusted advisers the men who, to your certain knowledge, have thrown in their lot with the enemies of the State.

15.34But indeed it is not difficult to find matter of accusation against these politicians or of reproach against the rest of you, but our real task is to find by what arguments and by what course of action our present faults may be amended. Perhaps it does not suit the present occasion to deal with every side of the question, but if you can by some fitting action give effect to the policy you have adopted, then there might possibly be, step by step, a general improvement.