201
Not only this guerdon of the common wealth but all your honors have been dragged through the mire and made contemptible by those execrable and god-forsaken politicians, who make proposals like this on such easy terms; men who, in their inordinate lust of dishonest gain, put up honors and civic rewards for sale, like hucksters vending and cheapening their pitiful, trumpery merchandise, and supply a host of buyers at fixed prices with any decree they want.
202
In 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.