On The Chersonese   

and formidable to all, Hellenes and foreigners alike; while you are
deserted and humbled, with a splendid profusion of commodities in your
market, and a contemptible lack of all those things with which you should
have been provided. But I observe that certain speakers do not follow the
same principles in the advice which they give you, as they follow for
themselves. _You_, they tell you, ought to remain quiet, even when you are
wronged; but _they_ cannot remain quiet in your presence, even when no one
is wronging them.

{68} But now some one or other comes forward and says, 'Ah, but you will
not move a motion or take any risk. You are a poor-spirited coward.' Bold,
offensive, shameless, I am not, and I trust I may never be; and yet I
think I have more courage than very many of your dashing statesmen. {69}
For one, men of Athens, who overlooks all that the city's interest
demands--who prosecutes, confiscates, gives, accuses--does so not from any
bravery, but because in the popular character of his speeches and public
actions he has a guarantee of his personal safety, and therefore is bold
without risk. But one who in acting for the best sets himself in many ways
against your wishes--who never speaks to please, but always to advise what
is best; one who chooses a policy in which more issues must be decided by
chance than by calculation, and yet makes himself responsible to you for
both--that is the courageous man, {70} and such is the citizen who is of
value to his country, rather than those who, to gain an ephemeral
popularity, have ruined the supreme interests of the city. So far am I
from envying these men, or thinking them worthy citizens of their country,
that if any one were to ask me to say, what good _I_ had really done to
the city, although, men of Athens, I could tell how often I had been
trierarch and choregus,[n] how I had contributed funds, ransomed
prisoners, and done other like acts of generosity, I would mention none of
these things; {71} I would say only that my policy is not one of measures
like theirs--that although, like others, I could make accusations and
shower favours and confiscate property and do all that my opponents do, I
have never to this day set myself to do any of these things; I have been
influenced neither by gain nor by ambition; but I continue to give the
advice which sets me below many others in your estimation, but which must
make you greater, if you will listen to it; for so much, perhaps, I may
say without offence. {72} Nor, I think, should I be acting fairly as a
citizen, if I devised such political measures as would at once make me the
first man in Athens, and you the last of all peoples. As the measures of a
loyal politician develop, the greatness of his country should develop with
them; and it is the thing which is best, not the thing which is easiest,
that every speaker should advocate. Nature will find the way to the
easiest course unaided. To the best, the words and the guidance of the
loyal citizen must show the way.

{73} I have heard it remarked before now, that though what I _say_ is
always what is best, still I never contribute anything but words; whereas
the city needs work of some practical kind. I will tell you without any
concealment my own sentiments on this matter. There _is_ no work that can
be demanded of any of your public advisers, except that he should advise
what is best; and I think I can easily show you that this is so. {74} No
doubt you know how the great Timotheus[n] delivered a speech to the effect
that you ought to go to the rescue and save the Euboeans, when the Thebans
were trying to reduce them to servitude; and how, in the course of his
speech, he spoke somewhat in this strain:--'What?' said he, 'when you
actually have the Thebans in the island, do you debate what you are to do
with them, and how you are to act? Will you not cover the sea with
warships, men of Athens? Will you not rise from your seats and go
instantly to the Peiraeus and launch your vessels?' {75} So Timotheus
spoke, and you acted as he bade you; and through his speech and your
action the work was done. But if he had given you the best possible advice
(as in fact he did), and you had lapsed into indolence and paid no
attention to it, would the city have achieved any of the results which
followed on that occasion? Impossible! And so it is with all that I say