Revenues and public funds

Have we not squandered our private estates, our public funds, and the contributions of our allies?

—but you, if you imagine that these are all that is required of you), private individuals, who control any of the State-funds, have some of them reared private houses, not merely finer than the majority, but more stately than our public edifices, and others have purchased and cultivated estates more vast than they ever dreamed of before.

The total revenues of the State, including your own resources, now squandered on unnecessary objects, and the contributions of your allies, must be shared by each citizen equally, as pay by those of military age and as overseers’ fees, or whatever you like to call it, by those beyond the age-limit;

The reason why this plan was agreeable to the majority and why they did not fight over the offices was because they had been schooled to be industrious and frugal, and not to neglect their own possessions and conspire against the possessions of others, and not to repair their own fortunes out of the public funds, but rather to help out the commonwealth, should the need arise, from their private re …

But the best and strongest proof of the fairness of the people is that, although those who had remained in the city had borrowed a hundred talents from the Lacedaemonians with which to prosecute the siege of those who occupied the Piraeus, yet later when an assembly of the people was held to consider the payment of the debt, and when many insisted that it was only fair that the claims of the Laced …

Many of you are wondering, I suppose, what in the world my purpose is in coming forward to address you on The Public Safety, as if Athens were in danger or her affairs on an uncertain footing, when in fact she possesses more than two hundred ships-of-war, enjoys peace throughout her territory, maintains her empire on the sea, and has, furthermore, many allies who, in case of any need, will readily …