On the Confiscation of the Property Of The Brother Of Nicias: Peroration

I am well aware, gentlemen, that Poliochus would value most highly his success in this trial, since he would regard it as a fine demonstration to citizens and strangers alike that he has sufficient power in Athens to make you vote in contradiction of your own selves on the very question in which you have sworn to do your duty.

For everyone will know that formerly you punished with a fine[*](Inflicted on a prosecutor who failed to obtain a fifth of the judges’ votes.) of a thousand drachmae the man who proposed that our land should be confiscated, and yet that today he has prevailed with his demand for its confiscation; and that in these two suits, in which the same man was illegally prosecuted, the Athenians voted in contradiction of themselves.

Would it not then be disgraceful of you, after confirming your agreements with the Lacedaemonians, to shatter so lightly what you have voted on your own account, and to make valid your covenants with them, but invalidate those that you have made with yourselves? You are incensed with any other Greeks who value the Lacedaemonians more than you; and will you show in your own disposition more fidelity to them than to yourselves?