4
You were at that time on the point of sending your entire force to Euboea and Olynthus,Olynthus, an important city in Chalcidicê. and Apollodorus, being one of its members, brought forward in the senate a bill, and carried it as a preliminary decreeThe senate could not legislate of itself. Decrees passed by it had to be submitted to the popular assembly. to the assembly, proposing that the people should decide whether the funds remaining over from the state’s expenditure should be used for military purposes or for public spectacles. For the laws prescribed that, when there was war, the funds remaining over from state expenditures should be devoted to military purposes, and Apollodorus believed that the people ought to have power to do what they pleased with their own; and he had sworn that, as member of the senate, he would act for the best interests of the Athenian people, as you all bore witness at that crisis.
5
For when the division took place there was not a man whose vote opposed the use of these funds for military purposes; and even now, if the matter is anywhere spoken of, it is acknowledged by all that Apollodorus gave the best advice, and was unjustly treated. It is, therefore, upon the one who by his arguments deceived the jurors that your wrath should fall, not upon those who were deceived.