History of the Peloponnesian War

But the good citizen ought to show himself a better speaker, not by trying to browbeat those who will oppose him, but by fair argument; and while the wise city should not indeed confer fresh honours upon the man whose advice is most often salutary, it certainly should not detract from those which he already has, and as for him whose suggestion does not meet with approval, so far from punishing him, it should not even treat him with disrespect.

For then it would be least likely that a successful speaker, with a view to being counted worthy of still greater honours, would speak insincerely and for the purpose of winning favour and that the unsuccessful speaker would employ the same means, by courting favour in his turn in an effort to win the multitude to himself.

But we pursue the opposite course, and, moreover, if a man be even suspected of corruption, albeit he give the best counsel, we conceive a grudge against him because of the dubious surmise that he is corrupt and thus deprive the state of an indubitable advantage.

And it has come to such a pass that good advice frankly given is regarded with just as much suspicion as the bad, and that, in consequence, a speaker who wants to carry the most dangerous measures must resort to deceit in order to win the people to his views, precisely as the man whose proposals are good must lie in order to be believed.

And because of this excessive cleverness Athens is the only state where a man cannot do a good service to his country openly and without deceiving it; for whenever he openly offers you something good you requite him by suspecting that in some way he will secretly profit by it.

Yet even so, in view of the very great interests at stake, and in so grave a matter, we who advise must regard it as our duty to look somewhat further ahead than you who give matters only a brief consideration, especially since we are responsible advisers,[*](It was open to any Athenian citizen to impeach any law or decree, as contrary to some existing law or as unjust or inexpedient, by a proceeding called γραφὴ παρανόμων.) while you are irresponsible listeners.