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And so vehemently did you believe that these actions were justifiable that you were more indignant with those of your fellow-exiles who were inactive than with those who had been the authors of your misfortunes. It is not fair, therefore, to censure those who wanted the same things which you desired, nor yet to regard all those men as base who, when they were exiles, sought to return, but much more should you condemn those oligarchs who, remaining in Athens, did deeds which deserved the penalty of exile; nor is it fair that you, in judging what sort of citizen my father was, should begin at the time when he had no art in the city’s affairs;
15
on the contrary, you should look to that earlier time and observe how he served the people before his exile, and call to mind that with two hundred heavy-armed soldiers he caused the most powerful cities in the Peloponnesus to revolt from the Lacedaemonians,419 B.C. Cf. Thuc. 5.52.2. and brought them into alliance with you, and in what perils he involved the Lacedaemonians themselves, and how he behaved as general in Sicily. For these services he is deserving of your gratitude; but for that which happened when he was in misfortune it is those who banished him whom you would justly hold responsible.
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Remember, too, I beg you, the many benefits he conferred upon the city after his return from exile, and, even before that time, the state of affairs here when you received him back: the democracy had been overthrown,By the Revolution of the Four Hundred. the citizens were in a state of civil war, the army was disaffected toward the government established here, and both parties had reached such a state of madness that neither had any hope of salvation.
