making an awful din—on that foreign leaf she squawks her nightingale’s lament,

for he’ll soon be sentenced, sent to die, although the jury’s votes create a tie.

It’s just and proper in this city our sacred chorus give advice and teach. So first it seems appropriate to us to free the citizens from inequalities— to ease their fears. So if a man slips up

thanks to the wrestling tricks of Phrynicus, I say we should allow the ones who fall

to state their case, reform their evil ways.

Besides that’s no dishonour to our city. It would bring benefits. It’s scandalous that those who fought a battle once at sea should instantly become Plataeans, masters instead of slaves. I don’t deny this worked out well—in fact, I praise it. It’s the only well-intentioned thing you did.

But as well as this it stands to reason we should forget the single blow of fortune of those who fought so much at sea beside you,

just like their fathers, your ethnic kinsmen— that's what they keep requesting. But you here, whom nature made the wisest of all people,

should drop your anger and make everyone who fights alongside us at sea a kinsman, a citizen. For if we are too proud, too puffed up with self-worth, especially now,

when we’re encircled by the sea’s embrace, in future time we’ll look like total fools. If I’ve a keen sense of the life and style

of someone who will someday cry in woe, this tiny irritating ape Cleigenes,

the most corrupt of all our laundry types, those noble men who cut the soap with ash, dilute the mix, and use Cimolian earth, won’t be with us long. He knows it, too— that’s why he’s not a man promoting peace.

He knows that someday in a drunken fit he may well lose his staff of office, and, more than that, be stripped of all his clothes.

This city, it often seems to me treats our best and worthiest citizens the way it does our old silver coins,

our new gold ones, as well. This money was never counterfeit—no, these coins appeared to be the finest coins of all, the only ones which bore the proper stamp.

Everywhere among barbarians and Greeks they stood the test. But these we do not use. Instead we have our debased coins of bronze,

poorly struck some days ago or yesterday. That’s how we treat our finest citizens, the nobly born, our righteous men, our best and brightest, the ones well trained in music and the dance at the palaestra. Instead we use foreign bronze for everything— useless men from useless fathers, red heads,

men who’ve come here very recently— the sort the city at its most negligent would never use in earlier days,

not even as a scapegoat. But now, you silly fools, it’s time to change your ways. Use worthy people once again. You’ll see— if you’re successful, then you’ll merit praise. And if you fail, well, you’ll be a fine match for the tree you’re hanging from. At any rate, should you slip up, that’s what the wise will say.

By Zeus who saves us, that master of yours is a very cultured gentleman.

Of course, he is. The only things he knows are how to drink