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İngilizce İngilizce

51 We are concerned about our polity no less than about the safety of the whole state and we know that our democracy flourishes and endures in times of peace and security while in times of war it has twice already been overthrown,By the oligarchical revolution of 411 B.C., when the government of the Four Hundred was established, and that of 404 B.C., when the reign of the Thirty began. but we are hostile to those who desire peace as if suspecting them of favoring oligarchy,For example, Timotheus, who was no flatterer. See Isoc. 15.131 ff. Cf. Isoc. 15.318. while we are friendly to those who advocate war as if assured of their devotion to democracy.

52 We are versed beyond all others in discourse and in the conduct of affairs, but we are so devoid of reason that we do not hold the same views about the same question on the same day; on the contrary, the things which we condemn before we enter the assembly are the very things which we vote for when we are in session, and again a little later when we depart to our homes we disapprove of the things which we resolved upon here.Aristophanes (Aristoph. Ach. 630) ridicules the Athenians for being quick in making up and in changing their minds. Cf.Aristoph. Eccl. 797. We pretend that we are the wisest of the Hellenes, but we employ the kind of advisers whom no one could fail to despise, and we place these very same men in control of all our public interests to whom no one would entrust a single one of his private affairs.