For Polystratus

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.