Greek Texts & Translations

23.202In the first place,—let me mention the latest instance first,—they not only claimed that Ariobarzanes and his two sons deserved everything they chose to ask for, but they associated with him two men of Abydus, unprincipled fellows, and bitter enemies of Athens, Philiscus and Agavus. Again, when Timotheus was held to have served your needs in some way, besides conferring on him all manner of great rewards, they associated with him Phrasierides and Polysthenes, who were not even free-born, but were blackguards whose conduct had been such as any man of good feeling will be loth to describe. 23.203Finally on this occasion, while demanding for Cersobleptes any honors they thought proper, and while concentrating on that, they attached two other names to his. One is the man of whose many misdeeds you have just heard the story. The other is named Euderces, but nobody in the wide world knows who he is. You see the result, men of Athens: honors that were once great now appear trifling; and the practice is advancing ever farther and farther. The old rewards no longer suffice, and they are not in the least grateful for them, unless you will also protect their persons, man by man, or so it seems.

23.204For this progress along the road of dishonor, men of Athens, if I am to tell the truth in all candor, nobody is more to blame than yourselves. You are no longer willing to bring malefactors to justice: retribution has disappeared from our city. Yet consider how our ancestors castigated those who had done them wrong, and ask whether their way was not better than yours. 23.205When they caught Themistocles presumptuously setting himself above the people, they banished him from Athens, and found him guilty of siding with the Medes. Because Cimon had dislocated the ancestral constitution by his personal efforts, they acquitted him by a majority of three votes only on the capital charge, and made him pay fifty talents. Such was their attitude to the men who had rendered those signal services. And they were right; they would not sell to those men their own freedom and their pride in their own achievements; ^note they honored them as long as they did right, but resisted them when they tried to do wrong. 23.206You, men of Athens, acquit men who have committed the gravest crimes and are clearly proved guilty, if they treat you to one or two pleasantries, or if a few advocates chosen from their own tribe ask you to be so good. If ever you do bring them in guilty, you assess the penalty at five-and-twenty drachmas. In those old times the State was wealthy and splendid, but in private life no man held his head higher than the multitude. 23.207Here is the proof: if any of you know the sort of house that Themistocles or Miltiades or any of those distinguished men of old lived in, you may observe that it is no grander than the common run of houses. On the other hand, both the structure and the equipment of their Public buildings were on such a scale and of such quality that no opportunity of surpassing them was left to coming generations. Witness those gate-houses, docks, porticoes, the great harbor, and all the edifices with which you see our city adorned. 23.208But today every man who takes part in public life enjoys such superfluity of wealth that some of them have built private dwelling-houses more magnificent than many public buildings; and others have bought larger estates than all you people in this court possess between you; while, as for the public buildings that you put up and whitewash, I am ashamed to say how mean and shabby they are. Can you name anything that you have acquired and that you will bequeath to posterity, as they bequeathed the Chersonesus, and Amphipolis, and the glory of noble exploits? That glory citizens like these are squandering as fast as they can,—but they cannot annihilate it, men of Athens; and we know why. 23.209In those days Aristeides had full control of the assessment of the tribute, but his own fortune was not increased by a single shilling; and when he died he was actually buried at the public expense. Whenever you wanted anything, you had more money in your treasury than any other Hellenic people, insomuch that you always started on any expedition with pay for the full period named in the decree authorizing such expedition. Now, while the administrators of public affairs have risen from poverty to affluence, and are provided with ample maintenance for a long time to come, you have not enough money laid by for a single day's expenditure, and when something must be done, you are at once without the means of doing it. The nation was then the master, as it is now the servant, of the politicians.