[143]
History
tells us that Alcibiades lived at Athens in the good old days of her prosperity, and I want you
to consider what great public services stand to his credit and how your
ancestors dealt with him when he thought fit to behave like a ruffian and a
bully. And assuredly it is not from any desire to compare Meidias with
Alcibiades that I mention this story. I am not so foolish or infatuated. My
object, men of Athens, is that you may know and feel that there is not, and
never will be, anything—not birth, not wealth, not
power—that you, the great mass of citizens, ought to tolerate, if it
is coupled with insolence.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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