[4]
Wherefore one may justly take you to task because, while you know well that many great houses1 have been ruined2 by flatterers3 and while in your private affairs you abhor those who practice this art, in your public affairs you are not so minded towards them; on the contrary, while you denounce those who welcome and enjoy the society of such men, you yourselves make it manifest that you place greater confidence in them than in the rest of your fellow citizens.
1 This term is used of estates in Isoc. 8.117. Here it is used of both families and their estates. Cf. Isoc. 8.88.
2 By the casualties and expenses of war.
3 Demagogic leaders of the war party, later termed sycophants. See Isoc. 8.121 ff.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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