Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

who induced the Lacedaemoniains to fortify Decelea,[*](In Attica, 413 B.C.) who sailed to rouse the islands to revolt, who became a promoter of mischief to our city, and who marched more often in the ranks of the enemy against his native land than those of his fellow-citizens against them! For those actions it is your duty, as it is also of those who are to come after you, to take vengeance on anyone of this family who falls into your hands.

Yet it is a constant habit of his to say that it is unfair, when his father on returning home received gifts from the people,[*](In 407 B.C., when he was welcomed back to a brief popularity on the strength of his friendship with the Persian satrap Tissaphernes.) that he should find himself unjustly discredited on account of his father’s exile. But in my opinion it would be monstrous if, after depriving the father of those gifts as having been unjustly bestowed, you should acquit this man, though a wrongdoer, on the ground of good service done to the city by his father.