If we admitted the truth of what would be your best possible answer, namely, that all you do is for honor and renown, I wonder what puts it into your head, that you ought from such motives to exert yourself and undergo toil and danger, while you advise the state to give up exertion and remain idle.
Demosthenes challenges the self-serving motives of certain individuals, questioning why they pursue personal honor through effort while advising the state to remain idle.
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But I suppose, you inherit a reputation from your father and grandfather, which it were disgraceful in your own person to extinguish, whereas the ancestry of the state was ignoble and mean.
For this reason he will show us no mercy, if he get us into his power: and therefore you must make up your minds, that the struggle will be one for life and death.
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?
For the riches of a state I consider to be allies, confidence, good-will; of all which you are destitute.
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