32
men to whom not even you yourselves believe others to be superior in loyalty, though if you think certain others are equally loyal I feel no jealousy,This is one of several similar colloquialisms signifying I don’t mind. and it would be my desire, provided only that you will deal fairly with them and that they shall not meet with the treatment accorded us, that their number may be legion. When however, you give the public such object-lessons as the present, who is there who will be willing to give himself to this line of duty with sincere intentions toward you?
33
Yet surely you will find no dearth of those who will at least pretend to do so, for in the past there has been none. Heaven forbid that I should live to see them unmasked like those men, who, though now openly pursuing policies they then repudiated, feel before none of you either fear or shame! You should ponder these facts, men of Athens, and not treat loyal men with disdain nor be persuaded by those who are leading the country on the way to bitter hatreds and cruelty.
34
For our present difficulties require goodwill and humanity far more than dissension and malice, an excess of which certain persons turn to their advantage, pursuing their businessAntiatticista cites this passage under ἐργολάβος Bekker’s Anecdota 1. p. 94. 3-4. to your detriment with the expectation of returns, of which I pray that their calculations may cheat them. If any one of you ridicules these warnings he must be filled with a profound simplicity. For if, observing that things have happened which no one could have expected, he imagines things could not happen now which have happened already before now, when the people were set at variance with those who spoke in their behalf by men suborned for the purpose, has he not taken leave of his senses?
