19
I therefore request you, gentlemen of the jury, to hold the same opinion of me now as you have held hitherto, and not only to remember my public services to the State, but also to bear in mind my private propensities. Consider that the most onerous of public services is to maintain throughout one’s life an orderly and self-respecting behavior, neither overcome by pleasure nor elated by gain, but evincing such a character that one is free from complaint or the thought of a prosecution in the mind of any fellow-citizen.
20
It is therefore unfair, gentlemen, that you should condemn me in deference to such accusers as these, who have gone this length in contesting the charge of their own impiety, and then, as they could never clear themselves of their own offences, they have the hardihood to accuse others. Nay, Cinesias,A notorious coward; see Introd. p. xviii. with the character that we know, has served in more campaigns than these men, who now show indignation at the city’s plight! They make no contribution to any scheme for raising the fortunes of the city, but do their utmost to incense you against your benefactors.
21
Rather is it to be wished that they, gentlemen, might recount their own proceedings to you in Assembly; for I could not find a worse fate to invoke upon them. On my own part, I request, I beseech, I supplicate you not to condemn me for venality, nor to believe that any amount of money could make me wish any ill to befall the city.
