On the Trierarchic Crown

If the decree, men of the senate, ordered that the crown should be given to the man having the largest number of advocates, it would have been senseless for me to claim it, for Cephisodotus alone has spoken on my behalf, while a host of pleaders has spoken for my opponents. But the fact is, the people appointed that the treasurer should give the crown to the one who first got his trireme ready for sea; and this I have done; so I declare that it is I who should be crowned. Also I am surprised that my opponents neglected their ships, but took care to get their orators ready; and they seem to me to be mistaken in regard to the whole affair, and to imagine that you are grateful, not to those who do their duty, but to those who say they do it; and they have formed a totally different estimate regarding you from that which I hold. For this very reason it is right that you should feel more kindly disposed toward me; for it is plain that I entertain a higher opinion of you than they do. Surely it would have been right and proper, men of Athens, that those who claim to receive a crown from you, should show that they are worthy of it, and not speak ill of me. But since they leave out the former of these two things and do the latter, I shall show that they are speaking falsely both in their praise of themselves and in their slander of me; and I shall prove this by their own deeds and by mine.