22
you do not show yourselves so ready to display even pity and kindness as you were at all other times toward men whom you never knew and by whom you used to be wronged, and, worse still, your vengeance is visited upon his children, whom even an enemy, if only he were fair-minded and capable of reason, would pity?
23
Moreover, I am amazed if any one of you is ignorant of this fact also, that it is not to the interest of our political life, either, for this to become public knowledge, that those who have established friendship in a certain other quarterThat is, with the Macedonian court. are sure to prosper in all things and fare better and, if some mishap occurs, the ways of escape are easier, but those who have attached themselves to the cause of the people will not only fare worse in other respects but for them alone of all men calamities will remain irremediable. Yet it is easy to demonstrate the truth of this,
24
for who of you does not know the incident of LachesLaches is known from an inscription as a syndic of the deme Aexonê (I.G. 2. 1197, p. 560, 13 f.). the son of Melanopus, whose lot it was to be convicted in a court of law precisely as the sons of Lycurgus in the present instance, but his entire fine was remitted when Alexander requested it by letter? And again, that it happened to MnesibulusMnesibulus is not otherwise known. of Acharnae to be similarly convicted, the court condemning him just as it has the sons of Lycurgus, and to have the fine remitted, and rightly too, for the man was deserving?
25
And none of those who are now making such an outcry declared that by these actions the laws were being nullified. Quite rightly so, for they were not being nullified, if it be true that all our laws are enacted for the sake of just men and for the preservation of honest men, and that it is expedient neither to render the calamities of the unfortunate perpetual nor for men to show themselves void of gratitude.
