7
As they attempted to question the rest of my administration, I wish to make a few points in connexion with it and then to pass on to the remainder of my defence in order to prove their dishonesty to you. I am the son of Demeas, Athenians, as the elder ones among you know, and the early part of my life I lived as best I could, neither doing harm to the community nor troubling any individual in the city. I merely persisted in trying, by my own efforts, to better my humble position.
8
Penury may involve inconvenience and hardship but it carries with it no discredit, since poverty is frequently, I imagine, a mark not of weakness of character but of sheer misfortune. When I entered public life I did not concentrate on lawsuits or the perquisites to be derived from writing speeches but on speaking freely from the platform, a practice which makes the lives of orators dangerous but holds out the clearest opportunities of success, if men are carefulεὐλαβουμένοις, too, clearly refers to the hearers, not to the orators, an therefore the sense is the same as that given by the words εὐλαβῶς ἀκροωμένοις, even if we do not adopt that emendation.; for, though they succumb to the speaker, their country’s safety must not also fall a victim.
