[221]
You should further ask yourselves, gentlemen of the
jury, why, if they were not guilty, I should have gone out of my way to accuse
them. You will find no reason. Is it agreeable to have many enemies? It is
hardly safe. Perhaps I had an old standing feud with Aeschines? That is not so.
“Well, but you were frightened on your own account, and were coward
enough to seek this as a way of escape;” for that, I hear, is one of
his suggestions. But, by your own account, Aeschines, there is no crime, and
therefore no jeopardy. If he repeats the insinuation, do you, gentlemen,
consider this: in a case where I, who did no wrong whatever, was yet afraid lest
these men's conduct should ruin me, what punishment ought they to suffer who
were themselves the guilty parties?
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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