Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

It is your duty to be informed of them; for you allow those speaking in defence to discourse on their own merits and on the services rendered by their ancestors, and therefore it is fair that you should listen also to accusers when they expose the many crimes that the defendants have committed against you, and the many evils that their ancestors have brought about.

When this man was a child, he was seen by a number of people at the house of Archedemus the Blear-eyed,[*]( A popular leader, who pressed for the prosecution of the commanders after Arginusae, 406 B.C.; cf. Aristoph. Frogs 417.) who had embezzled not a little of your property, drinking the while he lay at length under the same cloak; he carried on his revels till daylight, keeping a mistress when he was under age, and imitating his ancestors, in the belief that he would not achieve distinction in his later years unless he could show himself an utter rascal in his youth.