Nothing is more mischievous, men of Athens,
than that those who address your Assembly should both censure and employ the same
practices. For there is no man so unintelligent as to deny that to behave factiously among
themselves and to accuse one another when no one is on trial1 means damage
to your interests. I think myself that these men would be better citizens if, when
addressing the Assembly, they should turn the contentiousness they feel toward one another
against the enemies of the State; and to you I recommend not to take sides with either of
these factions or to consider how either one is to gain the mastery, but how you as a body
are to prevail over your enemies.
[2]
And I pray to the gods
that those who out of contentiousness or spite or any other motive express any other
sentiments than those they believe to be advantageous may cease to do so; for to invoke a
curse when speaking in council is perhaps unseemly. Therefore, while I should myself lay
the blame for this bad state of affairs, men of Athens, upon no one except these men as a class, and although I think you
ought to exact an accounting of them when you have the leisure, yet for the present I
think you should consider only how the existing situation may be bettered.
1 See Dem. Ex. 11 and note.