38
Does the agreement, men of the jury, bid these men lend our money, and that to a man whom we do not know, and have never seen? Or does it bid them put on board their ship a return cargo and convey it to Athens, and there display it to us, and deliver it to us in its entirety?
39
The agreement does not permit anything to have greater effect than the terms contained in it, nor that anyone should bring forward any law or decree or anything else whatever to contravene its provisions; yet these men from the very outset paid no heed to this agreement, but made use of our money as if it had been their very own; so rascally are they as sophists and dishonest as men.
40
For my own part, I swear by Zeus the king and by all the gods, I never made it a matter of reproach to anyone, men of the jury, nor blamed him, if he chose to be a sophist and to pay money to Isocrates; I should be mad if I concerned myself about anything of that sort. But, by Zeus, I do not think it right that men, because they look down on people and think themselves clever, should covet the property of others and seek to defraud them, trusting in their power of speech. That is the part of a rascally sophist, who should be made to suffer for it.
