Friends of Athens

But to prove that my father at the time received in person the reward which the people of Mytilene voted him, and that no debt was owing to him in Mytilene, I will produce a deposition of your friends.

In addition to all this, on the charge that, when I was on military service and had collected mercenaries with Ameinias (seeing that I was well-provided with funds from other sources, and had collected from Mytilene from your proxenus Apollonides and the friends of our city three hundred Phocaic staters, and had spent that sum upon these troops, in order that a matter might be prosecuted which was …

Take care, therefore, not to do yourselves this wrong and not to lend support to the slanders of the enemies of Athens rather than to the eulogies of her friends.

Indeed, so extravagant are they in their praise that they do not even hesitate to say that they would rather suffer injury at the hands of an Athenian gentleman than benefit through the rudeness of people from another city.

These say that Athens is the only city, the others being mere villages, and that she deserves to be termed the capital of Hellas both because of her size and because of the resources which she furnishes to the rest of the world, and most of all because of the character of her inhabitants;