Defense Against A Charge Of Taking Bribes: Undesignated

TestimonySo the vessels that were saved were twelve in number; and two were brought away for you by myself,—my own warship, and that of Nausimachus. After so many dangers encountered in your defence, and after all the services that I have rendered to the city, I now request, not a boon for my reward, as others do, but that I be not deprived of my own property; for I consider it a disgrace to you also, to take it both with my will and against my will.

I do not mind so much having to lose my possessions; but I could not put up with an outrage, and the impression that it must produce on those who shirk their public services,—that while I get no credit for what I have spent on you, they prove to have been rightly advised in giving up to you no part of their own property. Now, if you will admit my plea, you will both vote what is just and choose what is to your own advantage.

Do but observe, gentlemen of the jury, how slender are the revenues of the State, and how even these are pilfered by their appointed guardians: you ought, therefore, to see the surest revenue for the State in the fortunes of those who are willing to perform public services. So, if you are well advised, you will take as great care of our property as of your own personal possessions,

knowing that you will be able to avail yourselves of all that we have, as you were in the past. And I think you are all aware that you will find me far superior, as controller of my property, to those who control for you the property of the State: whereas, if you impoverish me, you will wrong yourselves besides; others will divide it up amongst them, as they do the rest.

You ought also to consider that it is far more fitting for you to give me of what is yours than to dispute my claim to what is mine, and to pity me if I am impoverished than to envy me my wealth: you should pray Heaven that the others may be as good citizens, so that, instead of coveting your money, they may spend their own on you.