17
This citizen, Demosthenes, of such a character, who might well have gained the pardon and gratitude of his colleagues in the public life of those days, since he had rendered great services to the city, not in word only but in deed, and had always remained true to the same policy rather than changing to and fro as you have done, met his death without begging the people for such extensive favors as would set him above the laws or thinking that men who had sworn to vote in accordance with the law should consider anything more important than their word; he was ready even for condemnation, if the jury decided upon it, and did not plead the inclemency of circumstance or express in public opinions which he did not hold.
18
Will you not execute this accursed wretch, Athenians, who, in addition to many other crucial blunders, stood by while the Thebans' city was destroyed, though he had accepted three hundred talents from the Persian King for their protection though the Arcadians,See note on Din. 1.10 arriving at the Isthmus, had dismissed with a rebuff the envoys of Antipater and welcomed those from the unhappy Thebans who had reached them with difficulty by sea, bearing a suppliant's staff and heralds' wands, plaited, they said, from olive shoots?
