[70]
Yet I observe that some of our speakers do not urge the
same policy for you as for themselves; for you, they say, ought to remain quiet
even when you are wronged; themselves cannot remain quiet among you, though no
one does them wrong. And yet, raillery apart, suppose someone should ask,
“Tell me, Aristomedes,1 why, when you know
perfectly well—for no one is ignorant of such matters—that a
private station is secure and free from risk, but the life of a politician is
precarious, open to attack, and full of trials and misfortunes every day, why do
you not choose the quiet, sequestered life instead of the life of
peril?” What would you reply?
1 An unknown opponent. If with Dindorf we adopt the vulgate, it will refer to the Athenian actor Aristodemus, who was a member of the first embassy to Philip and is mentioned in Dem. 18.21 and in several passages of Dem. 19
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
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