1
What in Heaven's name are we to say about such men as this? How will you deal with the wickedness of Philocles, who has been convicted by the Areopagus not once only but three times, as you all know, and as you were recently informed in the Assembly? He has lied before all the Athenians and the surrounding crowd, saying that he would prevent Harpalus from putting into the Piraeus, when he had been appointed by you as general in command of Munichia and the dockyards,
2
and he dared to take bribes against you all, against your country and your wives and children; he has broken the oath which he swore between the statue of Athena and the table; and he proposed a decree against himself imposing the death penalty on him if he had accepted any of the money which Harpalus brought into the country.
3
Yet despite this he dared to come and show himself to you when you knew that he had been proved answerable on all these counts. It is not justice on which he is relying, Athenians; for what has he to do with justice? No, it is audacity and effrontery, in virtue of which he has seen fit to take bribes in the past, to the utter disregard of yourselves and the course of justice in the city, and has now come forward to explain that he is guilty of none of these things. So complete has been his contempt for your apathy.
