ight escape a larger payment to yourselves. But if that is
what you really think has happened, you can render this whole scheme
of ours null and void in an instant by exacting from him the money
which is your due. It is clear, Seuthes will demand back from me
whatever I have got from him, and he will have all the more right to
do so, if I have failed to secure for him what he bargained for when I
took his gifts. But indeed, I am far removed from enjoying what is
yours, and I swear to you by all the gods and goddesses that I have
not taken even what Seuthes promised me in private. He is present
himself and listening, and he is aware in his own heart whether I
swear falsely. And what will surprise you the more, I can swear
besides, that I have not received even what the other generals have
received, no, nor yet what some of the officers have received. But how
so? why have I managed my affairs no better? I thought, sirs, the more
I helped him to bear his poverty at the time, the more I should make
him my friend in the day of his power. Whereas, it is just when I see
the star of his good fortune rising, that I have come to divine the
secret of his character.

"Some one may say, are you not ashamed to be so taken in like a fool?
Yes, I should be ashamed, if it had been an open enemy who had so
deceived me. But, to my mind, when friend cheats friend, a deeper
stain attaches to the perpetrator than to the victim of deceit.
Whatever precaution a man may take against his friend, that we took in
full. We certainly gave him no pretext for refusing to pay us what he
promised. We were perfectly upright in our dealings with him. We did
not dawdle over his affairs, nor did we shrink from any work to which
he challenged us.

"But you will say, I ought to have taken security of him at the time,
so that had he fostered the wish, he might have lacked the ability to
deceive. To meet that retort, I must beg you to listen to certain
things, which I should never have said in his presence, except for
your utter want of feeling towards me, or your extraordinary
ingratitude. Try and recall the posture of your affairs, when I 24
extricated you and brought you to Seuthes. Do you not recollect how at
Perinthus Aristarchus shut the gates in your faces each time you
offered to approach the town, and how you were driven to camp outside
under the canopy of heaven? It was midwinter; you were thrown upon the
resources of a market wherein few we