For Polystratus

In my opinion it is not the name of the Four Hundred that should incense you, but the actions of some of their number. For there were some who had insidious designs: but the rest were resolved to do no harm either to the city or to any amongst you; they entered the Council-chamber with loyal thoughts, and the defendant, Polystratus, is one of that section.

He was chosen by his tribesmen for the soundness of his views in regard to his township and also towards your people: yet they accuse him of disloyalty to your people, after he has been chosen by his tribesmen, who can best discern the character of this or that person amongst them.

And what reason could he have had for courting an oligarchy? Because he was of an age to achieve success amongst you as a speaker, or because he had such bodily strength as might encourage him to commit an outrage on any of your people? But you see of what age he is: it is one that fits him rather to restrain others from such proceedings.

To be sure, if a man has been disfranchised for some misdemeanor in the past, and so has courted a change in the constitution, he may be led by his past offences to seek his personal interest; but this man had committed no such offence as might lead him to hate your people in his own interest or in that of his children. One of these was in Sicily, the others were in Boeotia; so it was no interest of theirs that he should court a change in the constitution.

They do accuse him of having held many magistracies, but nobody is able to show that he was a bad magistrate. My own opinion is that it is not men of his character who are guilty of wrong in such situations, but some holder of a few offices who has not held them for the best advantage of the city. For our city was not betrayed by her good magistrates, but by her dishonest ones.

This man, first of all, as a magistrate in Oropus,[*](On the north coast of Attica.) neither betrayed you nor set up a new constitution when everyone else in office utterly betrayed their trust. They did not stay for the reckoning, thus convicting themselves of guilt; whereas he, feeling himself innocent, comes up for punishment!

The guilty are smuggled out by their accusers in return for payment; but those from whom they can get no profit they expose as guilty. They make similar accusations against those who have proposed some motion in the Council and against those who have not. But this man has not even proposed one motion regarding your people;

and I presume that these persons deserve no ill-treatment at your hands on the ground that, while they were loyal to you, they did not incur the enmity of that party.[*](The oligarchs.) For those who spoke in opposition to them were either exiled or put to death, so that whoever did aspire to oppose them in your interest was invariably deterred by fright or by the slaughter of their victims.

Hence in most cases they completely lost heart, since those who were not banished were executed. Those among them who engaged to obey and refrain from plotting and reporting, they placed in power. Thus a change of government would have been no easy thing for you. It is not fair, then, to punish people for matters in which they showed their loyalty to you.

And I consider it monstrous that the same treatment meted out to those who proposed measures concerning your people that were not to its highest advantage should also be applied to the man who proposed nothing, and who in seventy years has committed no offence against you, let alone eight days! Those who spent their whole lives in knavery have appeared as honest men before the auditors, because they have tampered with their accusers; while those who were always honest towards you—they are the knaves.

Now, in their previous prosecution, among other lying charges that they made against my father, they stated that Phrynichus[*](An active member of the oligarchy of Four Hundred (411 B.C.); cf. Lys. 13.70, Against Agoratus.) was a relation of his. Well, let anyone, if he pleases, bear witness, in the time allowed for my speech, that there was kinship with Phrynichus. But, of course, their accusation was a lie. Nor, indeed, was he a friend of his by upbringing; for Phrynichus was a poor man, and kept sheep in the fields, while my father was being educated in town.

On attaining manhood he looked after his farm, while Phrynichus came to town and became a slander-monger; so that the characters of the two were not at all compatible. And when Phrynichus had to pay a fine to the Treasury, my father did not bring him his contribution of money: yet it is in such cases that we see the best proof of a man’s friends. If he was of the same township, that is no reason why my father deserves to suffer,—

unless you also are guilty because he is your fellow-citizen. Where could you find a better friend of the people than the man who, after you had decreed that the government be entrusted to Five Thousand, proceeded as Registrar to make a list of nine thousand, his purpose being to risk no quarrel with any of his townsmen, but to enter the names of anyone who wished to be included; and then, if in some cases there was a disability, to do it as a favour. Well, the democracy is not upset by those who increase the number of the citizens, but by those who reduce it.

He was unwilling either to take the oath or to make up the list: they compelled him by the imposition of fines and penalties. When he was thus compelled, and had taken the oath, after sitting for only eight days in Council he took ship to Eretria,[*](On the coast of Euboea, opposite the north coast of Attica.) and in the sea-fights there he showed no craven heart: he came home wounded, just when the revolution had taken place. And this man, who had neither proposed any motion nor sat in Council for more than eight days, was sentenced to pay that large sum, while many of those who had spoken in opposition to you, and had continued in Council throughout, have been acquitted.

I speak not in envy of their case, but in pity for ours: some who were thought guilty have been begged off by persons whose administration evinced their zeal in your cause; others who were guilty bought off their accusers, and were not so much as thought guilty. Our plight, therefore, would be quite unaccountable.

They accuse the Four Hundred of criminal conduct: yet you were yourselves persuaded by them to hand over the government to the Five Thousand, and if you, being so many yourselves, were persuaded, why should not each one of the Four Hundred have yielded likewise? Nay, it is not these who are guilty, but the men who were deceiving you to your hurt. The defendant shows his loyalty to you by this fact among many,—that, if he did have revolutionary designs upon your people, he would never have taken ship and gone off within eight days of taking his seat in Council.

But, it night be said, he took ship in the quest of gain, like some people who went raiding and robbing. Well, nobody can cite any case of his keeping property of yours: no, they accuse him of anything rather than his use of his office. The prosecution at the time in no way showed their loyalty to the democracy, nor supported it; but now that the democracy is its own most loyal friend, their support is given nominally to you, but actually to themselves.

And do not be surprised, gentlemen of the jury, that he was fined such a large sum. For they found him without support, and obtained his conviction by accusations brought against both him and us. For, in his case, even if a man had evidence to give in his favor, he was prevented by the terror inspired by the accusers, whereas, in theirs, men were ready, through terror, to give even false evidence for them.

How monstrous, gentlemen, would be our fate if, although the men who are unable to deny their possession of your money are acquitted by you on the intercession of a friend, we who have shown our personal zeal in your people’s cause, and whose father, too, has done you no wrong, are not to obtain your grace! If some foreigner had come and either asked you for money or claimed to be recorded as your benefactor, you would have granted his request; and will you not grant to us, that we ourselves should have civic rights among you?

If there have been cases of disloyalty to your government or of the proposal of an improper motion, it is not the absent who are to blame for these things, since you have absolved even those who were present. For, even when one of our citizens here persuades you with mischievous advice, it is not you who are to blame, but your deceiver.