Exordia

It would be the righteous thing, men of Athens, for you to feel the same anger toward those who attempt to deceive you as toward those who have been able to do so. For what it was in the power of these men to do has been done, and they led you along. That these designs have fallen short of success, credit is due to Fortune and to the fact that you are now wiser than when you were misled by these men. Yet the State, I believe, is so far from being able to exact justice of the wrongdoers, that it seems to me you must content yourselves if you shall be able to avoid sustaining loss; so formidable are the trickeries and chicaneries and, not to particularize, certain salaried public services[*](The word ὑπηρεσίαι denotes services to which pay was attached; in all such the people took an avid interest, leaving unpaid offices to the wealthy: see Dem. Ex. 55.3 and the Xen. Const. Ath. 3. These could readily be made channels of financial corruption. For λῃτουργίαι, services for which the performer himself paid, see Dem. Ex. 48 and Dem. L. 2.12, and notes.) that have been organized against you. To denounce the villainy of these men, however, would not at this juncture be most opportune: but I do wish to say what I deem advantageous with reference to the matters I have risen to discuss.

The bickering and disorder, men of Athens, that are accustomed to injure the State all the time, have proceeded on this occasion from the same men as always. But the thing to do is not so much to blame these men—for perhaps they do it out of spite and quarrelsomeness and, what is the chief reason, because it pays them to do so—as to blame yourselves, men of Athens, if, after assembling on matters of common interest and prime importance, you sit and listen to private bickerings and cannot figure out for yourselves that the tirades directed against one another by all the speakers, when no one is on trial, cause you to pay the penalties for the offences of which they convict one another.

For outside of a few perhaps, to avoid saying all, not one of them abuses another that any of your interests may be forwarded; very far from it, but in order that he may himself with the greater immunity succeed in doing what he says, if so-and-so did it, would be the most outrageous conduct imaginable.