On the False Embassy

Yet no one can cite a more honorable peace made by the city before or since; but that is not what they regarded. They attributed the honorable peace to their own valor and to the high repute of their city, the refusal or acceptance of money to the character of the ambassador; and they expected an honest and incorruptible character in any man who entered the service of the state.

They held the taking of bribes to be too inimical and unprofitable to the state to be tolerated in any transaction or in any person; but you, men of Athens, having before you a peace which at once has pulled down the walls of your allies and is building up the houses of your ambassadors, which robbed the city of her possessions and earned for them wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, instead of putting them to death of your own accord, wait for the appearance of a prosecutor. You are giving them a trial of words with their evil deeds before your eyes.