{9} Now if Aeschines had confined his charges to the subject of the
indictment, I too, in making my defence, would have dealt at once with the
actual resolution of the Council. But since he has devoted no less a
portion of his speech to the relation of other matters, and for the most
part has spoken against me falsely, I think it is necessary, and at the
same time just, that I should deal briefly, men of Athens, with these, in
order that none of you may be led by irrelevant arguments to listen less
favourably to my pleas in answer to the indictment itself.

{10} As for his slanderous vituperation of my private life, mark how
straightforward and how just is the reply that I make. If you know me as
the man that he charged me with being (for my life has been spent nowhere
but in your own midst), do not even suffer me to speak--no, not though my
whole public career has been one of transcendent merit--but rise and
condemn me without delay. But if, in your judgement and belief, I am a
better man than Aeschines, and come of better men; if I and mine are no
worse than any other respectable persons (to use no offensive expression);
then do not trust him even in regard to other points, for it is plain that
all that he said was equally fictitious; but once more accord to me to-day
the goodwill which throughout the past you have so often displayed towards
me in previous trials. {11} Knave as you are,[n] Aeschines, you were
assuredly more fool than knave, when you thought that I should dismiss all
that I had to say with regard to my past acts and political life, and
should turn to meet the abuse that fell from you. I shall not do so; I am
not so brain-sick; but I will review the falsehoods and the calumnies
which you uttered against my political career; and then, if the court
desires it, I will afterwards refer to the ribald language that has been
so incontinently used.

{12} The offences charged against me are many; and for some of them the
laws assign heavy and even the most extreme penalties. But I will tell you
what is the motive which animates the present suit. It gives play to the
malice of a personal enemy, to his insolence, his abuse, his contumelies,
and every expression of his hostility: and yet, assuming that the charges
and the imputations which have been made are true, it does not enable the
State[n] to exact a penalty that is adequate, or nearly adequate, to the
offences. {13} For it is not right to seek to debar another from coming
before the people[n] and receiving a hearing, nor to do so in a spirit of
malice and envy. Heaven knows, it is neither straightforward, nor citizen-
like, nor just, men of Athens! If the crimes by which he saw me injuring
the city were of such a magnitude as he just now so theatrically set
forth, he should have had recourse to the punishments enjoined by the laws
at the time of the crimes themselves. If he saw me so acting as to deserve
impeachment, he should have impeached me, and so brought me to trial
before you; if he saw me proposing illegal measures, he should have
indicted me for their illegality. For surely, if he can prosecute
Ctesiphon on my account, he would not have failed to indict me in person,
had he thought that he could convict me. {14} And further, if he saw me
committing any of those other crimes against you, which he just now
slanderously enumerated, or any other crimes whatsoever, there are laws
which deal with each, and punishments, and lawsuits and judgements
involving penalties that are harsh and severe: to all of these he could
have had recourse; and from the moment when it was seen that he had acted
so, and had conducted his hostilities against me on that plan, his present
accusation of me would have been in line with his past conduct. {15} But
as it is, he has forsaken the straight path of justice; he has shrunk from
all attempts to convict me at the time; and after all these years, with
the imputations, the jests, the invectives, that he has accumulated, he
appears to play his part. So it is, that though his accusations are
against me, it is Ctesiphon that he prosecutes; and though he sets his
quarrel with me in the forefront of the whole suit, he has never faced me
in person to settle the quarrel, and it is another whom we see him trying
to deprive of his civil rights. {16} Yet surely, besides everything else
that may be pleaded on behalf of Ctesiphon, this, I think, may surely be