HKB
above the average in appearance, did not foresee the suspicion which his good looks might entail, and afterwards lived a somewhat fast life, he has prosecuted him for unnatural offences.
{234} Now let me speak of the banquet and the decree; for I had almost overlooked what I was especially bound to tell you. In drawing up the resolution of the Council with reference to the First Embassy, and again in addressing the people, at the assemblies in which you were to discuss the question of peace, not a single word or act of a criminal nature on the part of these men having so far come to light, I followed the ordinary custom, and proposed to accord them a vote of thanks, and to invite them to the Town Hall. {235} And I did, of course, entertain Philip's ambassadors as well, and on a very splendid scale, men of Athens. For when I saw that in their own country they prided themselves even on things like these, as showing their prosperity and splendour, I thought that I must begin by outdoing them in this respect, and displaying even greater magnificence. These incidents Aeschines will shortly bring forward to prove that 'Demosthenes himself voted thanks to us, and gave a banquet to the ambassadors', without telling you the precise time when the incidents occurred. {236} For these things belong to a time before any injury had been done to the city, and before it was evident that they had sold themselves. The ambassadors had only just arrived on their first visit; the people had still to hear what they proposed; and there was nothing as yet to show that Aeschines would support Philocrates, or that Philocrates would make such proposals as he did. If, then, Aeschines uses any such argument, remember that the dates of the incidents are earlier than those of his crimes. But since then there has been no friendliness between myself and them, and no common action. (To the clerk.) Read the deposition.
[The deposition is read.]