On the Scrutiny of Evandros

It is your business, gentlemen of the Council, to inquire whether you will reach a better decision in the matter of this scrutiny by listening to me or to Thrasybulus, who will defend this man. Well, concerning myself or my father or my ancestors he will have nothing to allege that points to hatred of the people. For he cannot say that I took part in the oligarchy, as I underwent the scrutiny for manhood[*](In his eighteenth year.) at a later date than that; or that my father did either, since he died while holding command in Sicily, long before those seditions;

or that my ancestors were subject to the despots, for they continually persisted in raising rebellion against them. Nor yet will he assert that we acquired our fortune in the war, and have spent nothing on the city: quite the contrary, our estate during the peace amounted to eighty talents, and the whole of it was spent in the war on the deliverance of the city.

But on my part I shall be able to tell of this person[*](Thrasybulus.) three things so grave in their enormity that each deed is worthy of death. First, for payment received, he raised a revolution in Boeotia, and deprived us of that alliance; second, he surrendered our ships[*](In a fight at the Hellespont, 387 B.C. Cf. Xen. Hell. 5.1.27.) and confronted the city with the problem of its safety;

and last, from the prisoners of war, whose loss he himself had caused, he extracted a bribe of thirty minae, by declaring that he would not obtain their release unless they supplied him with this sum from their own pockets. So now you are acquainted with the life of each of us: decide accordingly which of us two you ought to believe regarding the scrutiny of Evandros, and by so doing you will avoid mistake.