Exordia

Although many speeches have been made, men of Athens, by all your counsellors, I do not see that you are now any nearer to discovering what ought to be done than before you came up to the Assembly. The cause of this, in my opinion, is the same as the cause of the wretched plight of our affairs in general, that the speakers do not offer advice about the business before you, but accuse and revile one another, accustoming you, in my judgement, to hearing, without process of law, all the mischief of which they are the cause, in order that if, after all, they do come to face the test some day, you, thinking you are hearing nothing new, but only the charges over which you have often been angry, may so become more merciful jurors and judges of their misdeeds.

Perhaps it would be foolish at the moment to inquire into the exact reason why they do this; but because it harms you, for this reason I censure them. For my own part, I will accuse no one today nor will I sponsor any charge that I shall not make good on the spot, nor, in general, will I do any of the things which these men do; but when I have stated as briefly as I can what I think best for your interests and most profitable for you who deliberate, I will step down.