warnings and protests, both in your midst and wherever I was sent. But the
cities were stricken with disease: those who were engaged in political and
practical affairs were taking bribes and being corrupted by the hope of
money; while the mass of private citizens either showed no foresight, or
else were caught by the bait of ease and leisure from day to day; and all
alike had fallen victims to some such delusive fancy, as that the danger
would come upon every one but themselves, and that through the perils of
others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased.
{46} And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned
for their great and ill-timed indifference by the loss of their freedom,
while the leaders in affairs, who fancied that they were selling
everything except themselves, have realized that they had sold themselves
first of all. For instead of being called friends and guest-friends, as
they were called at the time when they were taking their bribes, they now
hear themselves called flatterers, and god-forsaken, and all the other
names that they deserve. {47} For no one, men of Athens, spends his money
out of a desire to benefit the traitor; nor, when once he has secured the
object for which he bargains, does he employ the traitor to advise him
with regard to other objects: if it were so, nothing could be happier than
a traitor. But it is not so, of course. Far from it! When the aspirant
after dominion has gained his object, he is also the master of those who
have sold it to him: and because then he knows their villainy, he then
hates and mistrusts them, and covers them with insults. {48} For observe--
for even if the time of the events is past, the time for realizing truths
like these is ever present to wise men. Lasthenes[n] was called his
'friend'; but only until he had betrayed Olynthus. And Timolaus;[n] but
only until he had destroyed Thebes. And Eudicus and Simus[n] of Larissa;
but only until they had put Thessaly in Philip's power. And now,
persecuted as they are, and insulted, and subjected to every kind of
misery, the whole inhabited world has become filled with such men. And