Accordingly, as each individual among us hath a parent, so should we regard the whole people as parents of the state, and, so far from depriving them of what the state bestows, we ought, in the absence of such bounty, to find other means to keep them from destitution.
Demosthenes extends the analogy of duty to parents to argue for the state's responsibility to care for its citizens, especially the poor.
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How is it equitable, that certain of these men, returned from prison, should not know themselves, while the state, that once protected all Greece and held the foremost place, is sunk in ignominy and humiliation?
Such is the truth, spoken with perfect freedom, purely from good-will and for the best: not a speech fraught with flattery and mischief and deceit, to earn money for the speaker, and to put the commonwealth into the hands of our enemies.
They say that you should keep quiet, though you are injured; but they can not themselves keep quiet among you, though no one injures them.
You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.
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