Bribery and corruption

As it is, they themselves, those who struck the bargain with them, and the parties with whom the money was deposited are paying the price of their misdeeds;

What accusation would they hesitate to bring, what court would they hesitate to mislead, what oaths would they feel any compunction in breaking, after taking thirty minae, as they have, from the Poristae, the Poletae, the Practores, and the clerks attached to them, to bring me into court, after driving me from the Council-chamber, and after swearing oaths so solemn, all because during my Prytany I …

I will not take bribes in respect of my judicial action, nor shall any other man or woman accept bribes for me with my knowledge by any subterfuge or trick whatsoever.

a toad-eater who drafts decrees and does political jobs for hire,—now that you have caught him, will you not make an end of him?

Men of Athens, while he is doing all this for money, while he has, to tell the truth, deliberately adopted the profession of paid agent, he does not spend his earnings on purposes that might claim the indulgence of anyone who heard of them.

For they are convinced that if you offer a whole-hearted and unanimous opposition to Philip, you will beat him and they will have no further chance of earning his pay, but that if at the first alarm of war you throw the blame on certain persons and devote your energies to bringing them to trial, they themselves by accusing them will gain both their ends—reputation with you and money from him, whil …

It is not that you do not recognize these speakers, for as soon as you have seen them, you know exactly who is speaking for pay and acting as Philip’s agent, and who is sincerely defending your best interests;

Because yours is the one city in the world where immunity is granted to plead on behalf of our enemies, and where a man who has been bribed can safely address you in person, even when you have been robbed of your own.

If you will consider by what means Philip acquired his political supremacy and performed his most signal achievements, you will find that it was by buying treachery from willing sellers, and by corrupting leading politicians and stimulating their ambition.

Therefore, inasmuch as bribe-taking is the forerunner of such treasons, and for the sake of bribes men commit them, whenever, men of Athens, you see any man taking bribes, you may be sure that he is also a traitor.

They held the taking of bribes to be too inimical and unprofitable to the state to be tolerated in any transaction or in any person;

So our ancestors thought that they were bound to consider the welfare of all Greeks, for except on that assumption bribery and corruption in the Peloponnese would be no concern of theirs;

They proscribed as their enemy and the enemy of their allies, disfranchising him and his family, a man of Zelea, one Arthmius, a slave of the Great King (for Zelea is in Asia), because in the service of his master he conveyed gold, not to Athens but to the Peloponnese.

men who took bribes from those who wished to rule Greece or ruin her, were hated by all, and it was the greatest calamity to be convicted of receiving a bribe, and such a man was punished with the utmost severity.