Against Meidias

But now, I believe, his champions are Polyeuctus and Timocrates and the ragamuffin Euctemon. Such are the mercenaries that he keeps about him; and there are others besides, an organized gang of witnesses, who do not openly force themselves upon you, but readily give a silent nod of assent to his lies. I do not of course imagine that they make anything out of him, but there are some people, men of Athens, who are strangely prone to abase themselves towards the wealthy, to attend upon them, and to give witness in their favour.

All this, I expect, is alarming for the rest of you as individuals, depending each upon his own resources; and that is why you band yourselves together, so that when you find yourselves individually inferior to others, whether in wealth or in friends or in any other respect, you may together prove stronger than any one of your enemies and so check his insolence.

Now, some such ready plea as this will be submitted to you: Why did not So-and-so, who suffered this or that at my hands, try to obtain redress from me? Or why did not So-and-so?—naming perhaps another of his victims. But I expect you all know the stock excuses for shirking the duty of self-defence—want of leisure, a distaste for affairs, inability to speak, lack of means, and a thousand such reasons.