2
And I pray to the gods that those who out of contentiousness or spite or any other motive express any other sentiments than those they believe to be advantageous may cease to do so; for to invoke a curse when speaking in council is perhaps unseemly. Therefore, while I should myself lay the blame for this bad state of affairs, men of Athens, upon no one except these men as a class, and although I think you ought to exact an accounting of them when you have the leisure, yet for the present I think you should consider only how the existing situation may be bettered.
1
I should have wished, men of Athens, that some of the speakers had displayed as much eagerness to present the best proposals as they did to be thought good speakers, in order that these men might have been regarded as honest instead of clever at speaking and that your interests, just as is proper, might have been in better shape. As it now is, however, some seem to me to be entirely content with the reputation for speaking, but to be taking no thought for what will subsequently befall you.
