attention whatever to my bodily safety. Am I shown to take such care of
the many olives, against which I might have committed the trespass, but
called to account for the very olive which it was not possible to dig up
without detection? 27. Was it not easier for me, (members of the) Boule,
to break the laws during the Democracy than under the Thirty? I do not
say this because I had any influence at that time or as being now in a
position of distrust, but it was easier for any one who wished to do
wrong then than it is now. I am not charged with doing this or any
other wrong during that time. 28. Unless I of all men had been most
ill-disposed to myself, how could I have attempted to cut an olive from a
piece of ground on which there was not a single tree except, as he says,
the stump of one olive, about which the road ran on both sides, with
neighbors dwelling on all sides, and perfectly open to the view of all?
Would any one have been so utterly reckless, such, being the case, as to
have done such a deed? 29. I think it strange that those men appointed by
the city to look after the sacred olives never fined me for encroaching
upon the trees nor brought me to trial on the charge of cutting them
down, but that this man, who is not a neighbor, nor an inspector, nor old
enough to know about such things, has entered me on the indictment as
having destroyed an olive.

30. I wish you not to place more trust in the assertions of my accuser
than you do in the facts themselves, nor accept the word of my personal
enemies in matters which you yourself know about, but to form your
opinions from what I have told you and from the rest of my conduct as a
citizen. 31. For I did everything allotted to me in a grander manner than
I was compelled to do by the state: equipped a trireme, supplied a
chorus, and performed all my other duties more expensively than the rest
of the citizens. 32. If I had done these things in a moderate way, and
not expensively, I should not be fighting against exile and for my