246
For be assured, fellow citizens, it is not our wrestling halls or the schools or our system of liberal studies alone that educate the young, but far more our public proclamations. It is proclaimed in the theater that one is crowned for virtue and nobility and patriotism, a man whose life is shameful and loathsome; a younger man, at sight of that, is corrupted. A man has been punished who is a rascal and libertine—like Ctesiphon; the rest have received instruction. A juror who has cast his vote against honor and justice goes home and proceeds to instruct his son; the boy refuses to obey, and with good reason, and he is surely justified thenceforth in calling exhortation vexation.
247
Cast your vote, then, not only as men who are rendering a verdict, but also as men who are in the public eye, to be called to account by the citizens who, though they are not now present, will nevertheless ask you what your verdict was. For be assured, fellow citizens, men will hold the city to be of like character with the man who is proclaimed. And it is a reproach for you to be likened, not to your fathers, but to the cowardice of Demosthenes.
247
How then could you escape such disgrace?