Against Androtion

Many instances might be given, ancient and modern, but of those that are most familiar to your ears, take if you please this. The men who built the Propylaea and the Parthenon, and decked our other temples with the spoils of Asia, trophies in which we take a natural pride,—you know of course from tradition that after they abandoned the city and shut themselves up in Salamis, it was because they had the war galleys that they won the sea-fight and saved the city and all their belongings, and made themselves the authors for the rest of the Greeks of many great benefits, of which not even time can ever obliterate the memory.

Well, you say, but that is ancient history. But take something that you have all seen. You know that lately you sent help to the Euboeans within three days and got rid of the Thebans by an armistice.[*](In 357.) Could you have done all this so promptly, if you had not had new vessels to convey your force? You would have found it impossible. Many other successes might be mentioned that have resulted from our being provided with these ships in sound condition.

Yes, and how many disasters from unsound ships? I will pass over most of them; but in the Decelean war[*](The last stage of the Peloponnesian War, 413 to 404.)—I am reminding you of a bit of old history which you all know better than I do—though many serious disasters befell our city, she did not succumb till her fleet was destroyed. But why need me cite ancient instances? You know how it stood with our city in the last war with the Lacedaemonians[*](Terminated by the peace of Callias in 371.) when it seemed unlikely that you could dispatch a fleet. You know that vetches were sold for food. But when you did dispatch it, you obtained peace on your own terms.

Therefore, men of Athens, seeing that warships have such weight in either scale, you nave done rightly to set this strict limit to the Council’s claim to the reward. For if they should discharge all their other duties satisfactorily, but fail to build these ships, by which we gained our power at the first and by which we retain it today, all their other services are of no avail, for it is the safety of the whole State that must be ensured for the people before every thing. Now the defendant is so obsessed with the idea that he can make any speech or proposal he wishes, that though the Council has discharged its other duties in the way that you have heard, but has not built the warships, he moved to grant them their reward.

That this is not a violation of the law, he could not possibly assert nor could you be brought to believe it. But I understand that he will put before you some such plea as this—that the Council was not to blame for the shortage of ships, but the treasurer of the shipbuilders, who absconded with two and a half talents, and so the business ended in a fiasco. But I must first express my surprise that he should have demanded a crown for the Council to reward a fiasco. I thought such honors were reserved for successes. Next, I have another consideration to put before you.

I submit that it is not fair to combine the two pleas, that the gift was not illegal and that the Council are not responsible for the lack of ships. For if it is right to give them the reward even when they have not built the ships, what need is there to say who is responsible for the omission? But if it is not right, why were the Council any the more entitled to it, because he can point to this or that man as responsible for the shortage?