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[3]
This, then, is my
first point. My second, which to some of you will perhaps be inconsistent with cutting the
speeches shorter, is that you listen in silence. For on the question whether this or that
is expedient and which choice the State might more rightly prefer, there are few arguments
to be presented, unless by such persons as wish to prattle aimlessly, nor would anyone
have occasion to state them a second time. As for the claim that it is only fair to listen
to the heckling,1 and to give an answer and to make speech after
speech, there is no one who could not do that. Thus by heckling you do not get rid of
speeches; instead you are forced in addition to hear speeches that are totally irrelevant.
Accordingly my judgement concerning the matter before you now begins.
1 This seems to refer to genuine heckling and not to organized interruption as in Dem. 13.20 and Dem. 2.29.
Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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