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

For they were conscious of the honor in which the whole family were held by the city, and how they had faced danger on your behalf in many places, and had made many large contributions to your funds, and had most nobly performed their public services; how they had never once evaded any of the other duties enjoined on them by the State, but had eagerly discharged them all.

I ask you, whose misfortune can surpass ours, if under the oligarchy we are put to death for showing loyalty to the people, and under the democracy we are stripped of our property as being disloyal to the people?

Furthermore, gentlemen, Diognetus was so slandered by base informers that he went away into exile, and was one of the few of the banished who neither took the field against the city nor came to Decelea[*](Where the Spartans kept a stranglehold on Attica, and welcomed exiled oligarchs from Athens.); nor has he been the author of any sort of injury to your people either in exile or after his return, but he carried principle to such a point that he was rather incensed with those who had offended against you than grateful to those who had been the authors of his recall.