Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/256

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS speak. This man will say, "I am director of the fortifications. I confess it; but I have expended of my own money for the public service an additional sum of one hundred minæ, and enlarged the work beyond any instructions: for what then am I to account, unless a man is to be made accountable for his own beneficence? To this evasion you shall hear a just and good reply. In this city, of so ancient an establishment and a circuit so extensive, there is not a man exempted from account who has the smallest part in the affairs of state. This I shall show, first, in instances scarcely creditable: thus the priests and priestesses are by the laws obliged to account for the discharge of their office, all in general, and each in particular; altho they have received no more than an honorary pension, and have had no other duty but of offering up their prayers for us to the gods.

And this is not the case of single persons only, but of whole tribes as the Eumolpidæ, the Ceryces, and all the others. Again, the trierarchs are by the law made accountable for their conduct, altho no public money has been committed to their charge; altho they have not embezzled large portions of their revenue, and accounted but for a small part; altho they have not affected to confer bounties on you, while they really but restored your own property. No: they confessedly expended their paternal fortunes to approve their zealous affection for your service; and not our trierarchs alone,