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Having learned this truth, the people did not forget it on account of the change in the constitution, but rather gave their minds to this one endeavor before all others: to obtain as their leaders men who were in sympathy with democracy, but were possessed of the same character as those who were formerly at the head of the state; and not unwittingly to place in charge of the whole commonwealth men to whom no one would entrust a single detail of his private interests;Cf. Isoc. 8.13, 133.
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and not to permit men to approach positions of public trust who are notoriously depraved; and not even to suffer men to be heardCf. Isoc. 8.3 and note. who lend their own persons to base practices but deem themselves worthy to advise others how they should govern the state in order to advance in sobriety and well-being, or who have squandered what they inherited from their fathers on shameful pleasures but seek to repair their own fortunes from the public treasurySee Isoc. 8.124 and note., or who strive always to speak for the gratification of their audience but plunge those who are persuaded by them into many distresses and hardships;
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on the contrary, they saw to it that each and everyone should look upon it as his duty to debar all such men from giving counsel to the public, and not only such men, but those also who assert that the possessions of the rest of the world belong to the state but do not scruple to plunder and rob the state of its legitimate property, who pretend to love the people but cause them to be hated by all the rest of mankind,
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and who in words express anxiety for the welfare of the Hellenes but in fact outrage and blackmail and make them so bitter against usCf. Isoc. 15.318. that some of our states when pressed by war would sooner and more gladly open their gates to the besiegers than to a relief force from Athens. But one would grow weary of writing were he to attempt to go through the whole catalogue of iniquities and depravities.
