Delphi Complete Works of Demosthenes

by Demosthenes

  I will now return to my next ensuing public actions; consider them once again in relation to the best interests of the commonwealth. Observing that the navy was going to pieces, that the wealthy were let off with trifling contributions, while citizens of moderate or small means were losing all they had, and that as a result the government was missing its opportunities, I made a statute under which I compelled the wealthy to take their fair share of expense, stopped the oppression of the poor, and, by a measure of great public benefit, caused your naval preparations to be made in good time. [103] Being indicted for this measure, I stood my trial before this court and was acquitted, the prosecutor not getting the fifth part of the votes. Now how much money do you think the first, second, and third classes of contributors on the Naval Boards offered me not to propose the measure, or, failing that, to put it on the list and then drop it on demurrer?b It was so large a sum, men of Athens, that I hardly like to name it. [104] It was natural that they should make this attempt. Under the former statutes they might discharge their public services in groups of sixteen, spending little or nothing themselves, but grinding down the needy citizens, whereas by my statute they had to return the full assessment according to their means, and a man who was formerly one of sixteen contributors to a single trireme — for they were dropping the term trierarch and calling themselves contributors-might have to furnish two complete vessels. They offered any amount to get the new rules abrogated and escape their just obligation. [105] Read first the decree,.for which I was indicted and tried, and then the schedules as compiled under the old statute under my statute.”Decree

  [In the archonship of Polycles, on the sixteenth of the month Boëdromion, the tribe Hippothontis holding the presidency, Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, introduced a bill to amend the former law constituting the syndicates for the equipment of triremes. The bill was passed by the Council and the People, and Patrocles of Phlya indicted Demosthenes for a breach of the constitution, and, not obtaining the required proportion of votes, paid the fee of five hundred drachmas.]”

  Now read that fine schedule.”Schedule

  [The trierarchs to be called up, sixteen for each trireme, from the associations of joint contributors, from the age of twenty-five to that of forty, paying equal contributions to the public service.]” [106]

  Now read for comparison the schedule under my statute.”Schedule

  [The trierarchs to be chosen according to the assessment of their property at ten talents to a trireme; if the property be assessed above that sum, the public service shall be fixed proportionately up to three triremes and a tender. The same proportion shall be observed where those whose property is under ten talents form a syndicate to make up that sum.]” [107]

  Do you think it was a trifling relief I gave to the poor, or a trifling sum that the rich would have spent to escape their obligation? I pride myself not only on my refusal of compromise and on my acquittal, but also on having enacted a beneficial law and proved it such by experience. During the whole war, while the squadrons were organized under my regulations, no trierarch made petition as aggrieved, or appeared as a suppliant in the dockyard temple, or was imprisoned by the Admiralty, and no ship was either abandoned at sea and lost to the state, or left in harbor as unseaworthy. [108] Such incidents were frequent under the old regulations, because the public services fell upon poor men, and impossible demands were often made. I transferred the naval obligations from needy to well-to-do people, and so the duty was always discharged. I also claim credit for the very fact that all the measures I adopted brought renown and distinction and strength to the city, and that no measure of mine was invidious, or vexatious, or spiteful, or shabby and unworthy of Athens. [109] You will find that I maintained the same character both in domestic and in Hellenic policy. At home I never preferred the gratitude of the rich to the claims of the poor; in foreign affairs I never coveted the gifts and the friendship of Philip rather than the common interests of all Greece. [110]

  My remaining task, I think, is to speak of the proclamation and of the audit; for I hope that what I have already said has been sufficient to satisfy you that my policy was the best, and that I have been the people’s friend, and zealous in your service. Yet I pass by the most important of my public actions, first, because I conceive that my next duty is to submit my explanations in respect of the actual charge of illegality, secondly, because, though I say nothing further about the rest of my policy, your own knowledge will serve my purpose equally well. [111]

  As for Aeschines’ topsy-turvy miscellany of arguments about the statutes transcribed for comparison, I vow to Heaven that I do not believe that you understand the greater part of them, and I am sure they were quite unintelligible to me. I can only offer a plain, straightforward plea on the rights of the matter. So far from claiming, as he invidiously suggested just now, that I am not to be called to account, I fully admit that all my life long I have been accountable for all my official acts and public counsels; [112] but for the donations that I promised and gave at my own expense I do say that I am not accountable at any time — you hear that, Aeschines — nor is any other man, though he be one of the nine archons. Is there any law so compact of iniquity and illiberality that, when a man out of sheer generosity has given away his own money, it defrauds him of the gratitude he has earned, drags him before a set of prying informers, and gives them authority to hold an audit of his free donations? There is no such law. If he contradicts me, let him produce the law, and I will be satisfied and hold my peace. [113] But no, the law does not exist, men of Athens; only this man, with his pettifogging spite, because, when I was in charge of the theatric fund, I added gifts of my own to that fund, says, “Ctesiphon gave him a vote of thanks before he had rendered his accounts.” Yes, but the vote of thanks did not concern the accounts which I had to render; it was for my own donations, you pettifogger! “But you were also a Commissioner of Fortifications.” Why, that is how I earned my vote of thanks: I made a present of the money I had spent, and did not charge it to the public account. The account requires an audit and checkers; the benefaction deserves gratitude and formal thanks, and that is the very reason for Ctesiphon’s proposition. [114] That this distinction is recognized both in the statutes and in your moral feelings I can prove by many instances. Nausicles, for example, has been repeatedly decorated by you for the money he spent out of his own pocket when serving as military commander. When Diotimus, and on another occasion Charidemus, had made a present of shields, they were crowned. Then there is our friend Neoptolemus, who has received distinctions for donations given by him as Commissioner for sundry public works. It would be quite intolerable that it should either be illegal for a man holding any office to make presents to the government, or that, when he has made them, instead of receiving thanks, he should be subjected to an audit. [115] To prove the truth of my statement, please take and read the actual words of the decrees made in the cases I have cited. Read.”Decree

  [Archonship of Demonicus of Phlya, on the twenty-sixth day of Boedromion, with sanction of Council and People: Callias of Phrearrii proposed that the Council and People resolve to crown Nausicles, the commander of the infantry, because, when Philo, the official paymaster, was prevented by storms from sailing with pay for the two thousand Athenian infantry serving in Imbros to assist the Athenian residents in that island, he paid them from his private means, and did not send in a claim to the people; and that the crown be proclaimed at the Dionysia at the performance of the new tragedies.]” [116] “Another Decree[Proposed by Callias of Phrearrii, and put to vote by the presidents, with sanction of Council: that, whereas Charidemus, dispatched to Salamis in command of the infantry, and Diotimus, commanding the cavalry, when in the battle at the river some of the soldiers had been disarmed by the enemy, did at their own expense arm the younger men with eight hundred shields, it be resolved by the Council and People to crown Charidemus and Diotimus with a golden crown, and to proclaim it at the great Panathenaea during the gymnastic contest
, and at the Dionysia at the performance of the new tragedies; and that the proclamation be entrusted to the judicial archons, the presidents, and the stewards of the festival.]” [117]

  Every one of the persons mentioned, Aeschines, was liable to audit in respect of the office he held, but not of the services for which he was decorated. It follows that I am not liable; for, surely, I have the same rights under the same conditions as anybody else! I made donations. For those donations I am thanked, not being subject to audit for what I gave. I held office. Yes, and I have submitted to audit for my offices, though not for my gifts. Ah, but perhaps I was guilty of official misconduct? Well, the auditors brought me into court — and no complaint from you! [118]

  To prove that Aeschines himself testifies that I have been crowned for matters in which I was audit-free, take and read the whole of the decree that was drawn in my favor. The proof that his prosecution is vindictive will appear from those sentences in the provisional decree which he has not indicted. Read.”Decree

  [In the archonship of Euthycles, on the twenty-third day of Pyanepsion, the tribe Oeneis then holding the presidency, Ctesiphon, son of Leosthenes, of Anaphlystus, proposed that, whereas Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, having been appointed superintendent of the repair of the fortifications, and having spent upon the works three talents from his private means, has made the same a benevolence to the people; and whereas, having been appointed treasurer of the Theatrical Fund, he gave to the representatives of all the tribes one hundred minas for sacrifices, it be resolved by the Council and People of Athens to commend the said Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, for his merits and for the generosity which he has constantly displayed on every occasion towards the People of Athens, and to crown him with a golden crown, and to proclaim the crown in the theatre at the Dionysia at the performance of the new tragedies and that the proclamation be entrusted to the steward of the festival.]” [119]

  Here, then, are my donations, in the decree — but not in your indictment. Your prosecution is directed to the rewards which the Council says that I ought to receive for them. Acceptance of gifts you admit to be legal; gratitude for gifts you indict for illegality. In Heaven’s name, what do we mean by dishonesty and malignity, if you are not dishonest and malignant? [120]

  As for the proclamation in the Theatre, I will not insist that thousands of names have been a thousand times so proclaimed, nor that I myself have been crowned again and again before now. But, really now, are you so unintelligent and blind, Aeschines, that you are incapable of reflecting that a crown is equally gratifying to the person crowned wheresoever it is proclaimed, but that the proclamation is made in the Theatre merely for the sake of those by whom it is conferred? For the whole vast audience is stimulated to do service to the commonwealth, and applauds the exhibition of gratitude rather than the recipient; and that is the reason why the state has enacted this statute. Please take and read it.”Law

  [In cases where crowns are bestowed by any of the townships, the proclamation of the crown shall be made within the respective townships, unless the crown is bestowed by the People of Athens or by the Council, in which case it shall be lawful to proclaim it in the Theatre at the Dionysia.]” [121]

  You hear, Aeschines, how the statute expressly makes an exception: “persons named in any decree of the Council or the Assembly always excepted. They are to be proclaimed.” Then why this miserable pettifogging? Why these insincere arguments? Why do you not try hellebore for your complaint? Are you not ashamed to prosecute for spite, not for crime; misquoting this statute, curtailing that statute, when they ought to be read in their entirety to a jury sworn to vote according to their direction? [122] And, while behaving like that, you treat us to your definition of all the qualities proper to a patriotic politician — as though you had bespoken a statue according to specification, and it had been delivered without the qualities specified ! As though talk, not deeds and policy, were the criterion of patriotism ! And then you raise your voice, like a clown at a carnival, and pelt me with epithets both decent and obscene, suitable for yourself and your kindred, but not for me. [123]

  Here is another point, men of Athens. The difference between railing and accusation I take to be this: accusation implies crimes punishable by law; railing, such abuse as quarrelsome people vent upon one another according to their disposition. These law courts, if I am not mistaken, were built by our ancestors, not that we should convene you here to listen to us taunting one another with the secret scandal of private life, but that we should here bring home to the guilty offences against the public weal. [124] Aeschines knows that as well as I do; but he has a keener taste for scurrility than for accusation. However, even in that respect he deserves to get as good as he gives. I will come to that presently; meantime I will ask him just one question. Are we to call you the enemy of Athens, Aeschines, or my enemy? Mine, of course. Yet you let slip your proper opportunities of bringing me to justice on behalf of the citizens, if I had done wrong, by audit, by indictment, by any sort of legal procedure; [125] but here, where I am invulnerable on every ground, by law, by lapse of time, by limitation, by many earlier judgements covering every point, by default of any previous conviction for any public offence, here, where the country must take her share in the repute or disrepute of measures that were approved by the people, here you have met me face to face. You pose as my enemy; are you sure you are not the enemy of the people? [126]

  A righteous and conscientious verdict is now sufficiently indicated; but I have still, as it seems — not because I have any taste for railing, but because of his calumnies — to state the bare necessary facts about Aeschines, in return for a great many lies. I must let you know who this man, who starts on vituperation so glibly — who ridicules certain words of mine though he has himself said things that every decent man would shrink from uttering — really is, and what is his parentage. [127] Why, if my calumniator had been Aeacus, or Rhadamanthus, or Minos, instead of a mere scandalmonger, a market-place loafer, a poor devil of a clerk, he could hardly have used such language, or equipped himself with such offensive expressions. Hark to his melodramatic bombast: “Oh, Earth! Oh, Sun! Oh, Virtue,” and all that vaporing; his appeals to “intelligence and education, whereby we discriminate between things of good and evil report” — for that was the sort of rubbish you heard him spouting. [128] Virtue! you runagate; what have you or your family to do with virtue? How do you distinguish between good and evil report? Where and how did you qualify as a moralist? Where did you get your right to talk about education? No really educated man would use such language about himself, but would rather blush to hear it from others; but people like you, who make stupid pretensions to the culture of which they are utterly destitute, succeed in disgusting everybody whenever they open their lips, but never in making the impression they desire. [129]

  I am at no loss for information about you and your family; but I am at a loss where to begin. Shall I relate how your father Tromes was a slave in the house of Elpias, who kept an elementary school near the Temple of Theseus, and how he wore shackles on his legs and a timber collar round his neck? or how your mother practised daylight nuptials in an outhouse next door to Heros the bone-setter, and so brought you up to act in tableaux vivants and to excel in minor parts on the stage? However, everybody knows that without being told by me. Shall I tell you how Phormio the boatswain, a slave of Dio of Phrearrii, uplifted her from that chaste profession? But I protest that, however well the story becomes you, I am afraid I may be thought to have chosen topics unbecoming to myself. [130] I will pass by those early days, and begin with his conduct of his own life; for indeed it has been no ordinary life, but such as is an abomination to a free people. Only recently — recently, do I say? Why it was only the day before yesterday when he became simultaneously an Athenian and an orator, and, by the addition of two syllables, transformed his father from Tromes to Atrometus, and bestowed upon his mother the high sounding name of Glaucothea, although she was universall
y known as the Banshee, a nickname she owed to the pleasing diversity of her acts and experiences — it can have no other origin. [131] You were raised from servitude to freedom, and from beggary to opulence, by the favor of your fellow-citizens, and yet you are so thankless and ill-conditioned that, instead of showing them your gratitude, you take the pay of their enemies and conduct political intrigues to their detriment. I will not deal with speeches which, on a disputable construction, may be called patriotic, but I will recall to memory acts by which he was proved beyond doubt to have served your enemies. [132]

  You all remember Antiphon, the man who was struck off the register, and came back to Athens after promising Philip that he would set fire to the dockyard. When I had caught him in hiding at Peiraeus, and brought him before the Assembly, this malignant fellow raised a huge outcry about my scandalous and undemocratic conduct in assaulting citizens in distress and breaking into houses without a warrant, and so procured his acquittal. [133] Had not the Council of the Areopagus, becoming aware of the facts, and seeing that you had made a most inopportune blunder, started further inquiries, arrested the man, and brought him into court a second time, the vile traitor would have slipped out of your hands and eluded justice, being smuggled out of the city by our bombastic phrase-monger. As it was, you put him on the rack and then executed him, and you ought to have done the same to Aeschines. [134] In fact, the Council of the Areopagus knew well that Aeschines had been to blame throughout this affair, and therefore when, after choosing him by vote to speak in support of your claims to the Temple at Delos, by a misapprehension such as has often been fatal to your public interests, you invited the cooperation of that Council and gave them full authority, they promptly rejected him as a traitor, and gave the brief to Hypereides. On this occasion the ballot was taken at the altar, and not a single vote was cast for this wretch. [135] To prove the truth of my statement, please call the witnesses.”Witnesses