Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

And you should ask yourselves, gentlemen, what reason you could have for sparing such men as these. Is it because, unfortunate though their public career has been, they are otherwise orderly persons, who have lived sober lives? Have not most of them been prostitutes, while some have lain with their sisters, and others have had children by their daughters;

others, again, have performed Mysteries, mutilated the Hermae, and committed profanity against all the gods and offences against the whole city, showing injustice and illegality alike in their public treatment of their fellow-men and in their behavior to each other, refraining from no audacity, and unversed in no outrageous practice? Indeed, there is nothing that they have been spared, or have spared. For their propensity is to be ashamed of what is honorable, and to glory in what is base.

It is true, gentlemen, you have acquitted ere now some persons though you held them guilty, because you supposed that they would be useful to you in the future. Well, what hope is there that the city will derive any benefit from this man, whom you will know for the worthless wretch he is, when he makes his defence, and whose villainy you have learnt from the general tenor of his life?

But, what is more, even if he left the city he could do you no harm, craven and pauper that he is, with no ability for business, at feud with his own folk and hated by everyone else.

So neither is there any reason here to be heedful of him: far rather should you make him serve as an example for all people, and particularly his friends, who refuse to do what is enjoined on them, who aspire to similar conduct, and who, misguided in their own concerns, harangue you upon yours.

Now, I have made my accusation to the best of my ability. I am well aware that the rest of my hearers are wondering how I could have discovered the offences of these men with such precision, yet the accused is deriding me for having told but the smallest fraction of the crimes that lie at their door.

You have therefore to reckon in with what has been told the tale of what has been omitted, and to be all the more for condemning him; you must reflect that he is liable to the charge preferred, and that it is a great blessing to the State that it should be relieved of this sort of citizen. Read them[*](i.e., the jurors.) the laws, the oaths and the charge preferred: bearing these in mind, they will vote what is just.

Laws

Oaths

Charge