Exordia

Perhaps some of you, men of Athens, regard me as a nuisance, speaking on the same subjects time after time. But if you scan things rightly, it is not I who shall justly bear the blame for this, but rather those who do not obey your decrees. For if those men had done at the outset what you enjoined, it would not have been necessary for us to speak a second time or, if they had complied on the second occasion, a third time. As it is, the more often you have voted what your duty demanded, the less those men, it seems to me, have been prepared to act upon it.

Previously, I confess by the gods, I did not know what was the point of the saying: Responsibility reveals the man.[*](On this topic Demosthenes quotes Soph. Ant. 175-190 in Dem. 19.247.) But now I think I could even tell another what it means. For the officials, or some of them— to avoid saying all—feel not even the slightest regard for your decrees but consider how they shall make some gain. Certainly, if it had been feasible for me to make a payment, I might have been justly rebuked for this very reason, if I chose to annoy you through balking at a paltry expenditure. But as things are, it is not feasible, as these men themselves have not failed to observe.

What is more, if, in the case of a service[*](Public services required of wealthy citizens at their own expense were called λῃτουργίαι; these are to be distinguished from services to which salaries were attached, ὑπηρεσίαι: see Dem. Ex. 52 and note.) due to you they think I am going to leave it to themselves to decide, they are fools. And, perhaps, they both wish and expect it; this I will not do, but if they will allow me, I shall launch the ship and do my duty; otherwise, I shall reveal to you the names of those responsible.[*](Demosthenes, as a member of a group (συντέλεια) responsible for equipping a trireme under the system of Navy-Boards, protests against being assessed more than his equitable share. Apparently, the expenditures were specified in the decrees of the Assembly but the officials were making demands in excess of the specifications. For abuses of the system see Dem. 18.104 and Dem. 21.155. Demosthenes may have been chairman of a Navy-Board at the time; Dem. 21.157.)