225
On the other hand, at that time, I imagine, there was no chance of doing what he does now, when out of a lot of old dates and decrees he selects for slanderous purposes any that nobody knew beforehand or would expect to hear cited today, transposes dates, substitutes fictitious reasons for the true reasons of transactions, and so makes a show of speaking to the point.
226
That trick was not possible then. All speeches must have been made on a basis of truth, within a short time of the facts, when the jury still remembered details and almost knew them by heart. That is why, after shirking inquiry at the time when the events were recent, he has returned to the issue today, expecting, I suppose, that you will conduct a forensic competition rather than an inquiry into political conduct, and that the decision will turn upon diction rather than sound policy.
227
Then he resorts to sophistry, and tells you that you must ignore any opinion of himself and me which you brought with you from home; and that, as, when you cast up a man’s accounts, though you anticipate a surplus, you acquiesce in the result if the totals balance, so you must now accept the result of the calculation. Every dishonest contrivance, you will observe, is rotten to the core.
228
By his ingenious apologue he has admitted that we are both here as acknowledged advocates—I of our country, he of Philip; for if such had not been the view you take of us, he would not have been at pains to convert you.
229
I shall prove without difficulty that he has no right to ask you to reverse that opinion—not by using counters, for political measures are not to be added up in that fashion, but by reminding you briefly of the several transactions, and appealing to you who hear me as both the witnesses and the auditors of my account. We owe it to that policy of mine which he denounces that, instead of the Thebans joining Philip in an invasion of our country, as everyone expected, they fought by our side and stopped him;
