For the Liberty of the Rhodians

​Neither was there anyone to instruct Mausolus while alive, nor Artemisia after his death, not to seize Cos and Rhodes and various other Greek cities, which the King, their master, renounced to the Greeks in the treaties, and for which the Greeks of those times underwent many dangers and honorable struggles. But if, indeed, anyone does say so to both of them, those who will obey them, it seems, do not exist.

​But I think it is just to restore the democratic party of Rhodes; nevertheless, even if it were not just, when I look at what these people are doing, I think it is proper to advise you to restore them. Why? Because, men of Athens, if all were eager to do what is just, it would be shameful for us alone to be unwilling; but when all others are preparing how they may be able to do injustice, for us alone to put forward justice while not taking hold of anything, I consider not justice, but cowardice. For I see that all people are deemed worthy of justice in proportion to their present power.

​And I can state an example of this, familiar to you all. There are treaties of the Greeks with the King, which our city made, which all praise, and later after these, those of the Lacedaemonians, which indeed people now condemn; and in these two, the same justice is not defined. For regarding private rights within the constitutions, the laws have given a common and equal share to both the weak and the strong; but regarding Greek international rights, the strong become the definers of them for the weak.

​Since, therefore, it is your lot to know what is just, you must consider how it shall also be in your power to practice it. And this will be so, if you are looked upon as the common champions of the freedom of all. But it seems to me, with reason, to be most difficult for you to do what is necessary. For all other men have but one struggle, that against their open enemies, whom if they conquer, there is nothing to prevent them from being masters of their advantages;

​but for you, men of Athens, there are two, this one which is common to the others, and another prior to this and greater, which is present in addition; for in your deliberations you must overcome those who choose to act in opposition to the city among you. When, therefore, because of these men, nothing of what is necessary can be done without a struggle, it naturally happens that you miss many opportunities.

​Indeed, as for the fact that many fearlessly choose this post in the state, perhaps the benefits from those who pay them are chiefly responsible, yet one might also justly blame you. For you ought, men of Athens, to hold the same view concerning posts in the state as you hold concerning those in military campaigns. What, then, is this view? You think that he who deserts the post assigned by the general ought to be disenfranchised and have no share in any public rights.

​It was necessary, therefore, to make those also who desert the post handed down by our ancestors in the state and act in an oligarchical manner disenfranchised from advising you; but now, while you regard those of the allies who have sworn to judge the same enemy and friend as most well-disposed, you consider those of the politicians whom you know clearly to have chosen the enemies of the city as most trustworthy.

​But indeed, it is not difficult to find what one might accuse these men of, or what blame one might cast upon the rest of you; rather, by what arguments or what kind of action one can correct what is now not right, this is the task to find. Perhaps, then, it is not even the present opportunity to speak about all things; but if you are able to ratify what you have chosen by some advantageous action, the other matters too might perhaps, one by one, always go better.

​I, therefore, think you ought to take hold of these matters vigorously, and act in a manner worthy of the city, bearing in mind that you delight in hearing when someone praises your ancestors and goes through their deeds and speaks of their trophies. Consider, then, that your ancestors set up these trophies not that you might wonder at them as you gaze, but that you might also imitate the virtues of those who set them up.