by Demosthenes
Of Androtion I may speak at greater length hereafter. As for what he will say in support of Timocrates, I have still much more to say, but I will refrain. I am sure that he will not be able to deny that this law is undesirable, that it was introduced unconstitutionally, and that it is iniquitous in every respect; but I understand that he alleges that the money has now been paid in full by Androtion, Glaucetes, and Melanopus, and that he would be most infamously treated if, when the people on whose behalf he is accused of proposing his law have made full restitution, he should nevertheless be convicted. [188] In my judgement, it is not open to him to make the slightest use of that plea. — If you, sir, admit that you did bring in your law on behalf of the persons who, as you say, have now done their duty, you must clearly be found guilty on this count, — that statutes still valid distinctly forbid you to introduce a law that does not apply equally to every citizen; and the jury have sworn to give judgement in accordance with those statutes. [189] On the other hand, if you say that you legislated for the general good, you must not plead the payment made by these men, — it has nothing to do with your law, — you must prove that the law itself is acceptable and well conceived. That is the motive you allege; that is what I deny, and have therefore indicted you; that is the issue which the jury is to decide. — I should, indeed, have no difficulty in proving that respect for law is by no means the reason why these persons have paid their debt; but as that is not the question on which the jury have to vote, why trouble them by discussing it now? [190]
He will not, I suppose, spare you the argument that it would be very hard on him to be punished for proposing that no Athenian citizen shall be sent to jail; and that it is for the benefit more especially of people without influence that laws should be as merciful and humane as possible. To avoid being led astray, you will do well to listen to a brief rejoinder to that plea. [191] For when he uses the phrase, “that no Athenian citizen shall be sent to jail,” do not forget that he is lying. That is not his proposal; it is that you jurors shall lose your control over penalties. He is trying to establish the right of appeal against a verdict returned on oath, after argument and trial. Do not let him pick out of his law and read a few phrases that have a benevolent sound to the ear let him produce the whole statute, clause by clause, and allow you to consider its effects. You will find that it is what I describe, not what he pretends. [192] Again, with regard to the plea that merciful and humane laws are good for the common people, you must consider this. There are two sorts of problems, men of Athens, with which the laws of all nations are concerned. First, what are the principles under which we associate with one another, have dealings with one another, define the obligations of private life, and, in general, order our social relations? Secondly, what are the duties that every man among us owes to the commonwealth, if he chooses to take part in public life and professes any concern for the State? [193] Now it is to the advantage of the common people that laws of the former category, laws of private intercourse, shall be distinguished by clemency and humanity. On the other hand it is to your common advantage that laws of the second class, the laws that govern our relations to the State, shall be trenchant and peremptory, because, if they are so, politicians will not do so much harm to the commonalty. Therefore, when he makes use of this plea, refute it by telling him that he is introducing clemency, not into the laws that benefit you, but into the laws that intimidate politicians. [194]
It would take a long speech to prove, point by point, that everything he will say will be intended to hoodwink and mislead you. Most of his topics I will pass over, but I will mention one leading point which you will bear in mind. Watch all his pleas, however various, and see if he will be able to advance one to prove his contention that a legislator may justly make the same ordinance for bygone issues, already determined, as for cases yet to come. Every clause of his law is infamous and outrageous; but that provision is the most outrageous and unconstitutional of all. [195] But, if neither the defendant nor any other man can make good that contention, you must clearly recognize that you are being deluded, and you must ask yourselves how it ever occurred to his mind to legislate in this fashion. — You did not bring in your law gratuitously, Timocrates. No, indeed! far from it. You can offer no excuse for daring to introduce such a measure, except that cursed greediness of yours. Not one of these men is your kinsman, or a member of your household, or has any natural claim on you. [196] Nor can you plead that you took compassion on ill-used men, and therefore resolved to help them. That long after date they should restore money belonging to the citizens, reluctantly, unwillingly, and after conviction in three courts of justice, — you certainly never thought that ill-usage. That means ill-conduct, and should rather provoke our indignation than incline us to pity. Nor do you take pity on them because a humane and considerate disposition is a peculiar trait of your character. [197] Compassion for Androtion, Glaucetes, and Melanopus, because they have to repay stolen money, shows a temper quite different from your refusal of compassion to everyone of the many persons here present, and of all the other citizens, whose houses you invaded with police-magistrates, receivers, and clerks at your heels; with demolishing their front-doors, dragging their bed-clothes from under them, and levying distraint on a man’s maidservant, if he was living with her; and that is how you and Androtion were employed for a whole twelve-month. [198] — Yes, it was you citizens who were the more infamously ill-used; — and as for you, you reprobate, you had far more reason to pity your fellow-citizens, who, thanks to you speech-makers, never get a moment’s respite from taxpaying. Even that is not enough they are compelled to pay double, compelled by you and Androtion, who never paid income-tax in your lives. [199] — And yet this fellow was so self-confident, — as though he could never be brought to justice for his doings, — that, with ten colleagues in office, he alone joined Androtion in making his return. Yes indeed; gratuitously and from purely unselfish motives, Timocrates provokes your hostility, introducing laws that contradict every statute, and that even, to crown all, contradict a statute of his own making! By our Lady, I think that even you must recognize his generosity! [200]
I will now tell you, without any hesitation, something that, in my opinion, deserves your sternest indignation. Men of Athens, while he is doing all this for money, while he has, to tell the truth, deliberately adopted the profession of paid agent, he does not spend his earnings on purposes that might claim the indulgence of anyone who heard of them. What purposes do I mean? Well, gentlemen of the jury, the defendant’s father is in debt to the Treasury. I do not mention that by way of reproach, but because I cannot help it. And this dutiful son allows him to remain in debt! [201] Here is a man who is going to inherit disfranchisement, if anything happens to his father, and yet does not think proper to pay the debt, but prefers to pocket the profit of his meanness so long as his father lives. Is such a man likely to keep his hands off anything? — For your own father you have no compassion; you do not think him ill-used because, while you are getting your pickings and making your profits out of the taxes you used to collect, out of the decrees you move, out of the laws you introduce, he is losing his citizen-rights for lack of a trifling sum of money. And yet you call yourself a compassionate man! [202] — Ah, but he was a good manager for his sister. Why, if he had committed no other crime, he deserves destruction on that account alone. He has not given her in marriage, he has sold her. An enemy of yours from Corcyra, one of the faction now in power there, used to lodge at his house whenever he came here on embassy, and wanted to have his sister, — I will not say on what terms. He took the man’s money, and he has given him the girl; and she is in Corcyra to this day. [203] A man who pretends to have given his sister in marriage, but has really sold her for export; a man who supports his father’s old age in the manner you know; a toad-eater who drafts decrees and does political jobs for hire, — now that you have caught him, will you not make an end of him? If not, we shall think, men of Athens, that you like lawsuits and vexations, and that you
do not want to be quit of scoundrels. [204]
I am sure that you would all agree, if asked, that all evil-doers ought to be punished; but I will try to satisfy you that this malefactor in particular deserves punishment for introducing a law detrimental to the common people. A thief, or a cutpurse, or any rogue of that sort, in the first place really injures only the man who encounters him; it is out of his power to strip everybody, or steal everybody’s property; and in the second place, he brings disgrace on no one’s reputation or manner of life but his own. [205] But if a man introduces a law by which unlimited license and immunity is granted to those who seek to defraud their fellow-citizens, he is guilty in respect of the whole city, and he brings disgrace upon everybody; for an infamous statute, when ratified, is a discredit to the government that enacted it and an injury to everyone who lives under it. Will you not, then, punish, when you have caught him, a man who is doing his utmost to injure you, and to pollute you with infamy? If not, what excuse will you have? [206] The best way to ascertain with what far-reaching designs he has framed his law, and how inimical those designs are to the established constitution, is to reflect that this is just the way that all conspirators begin, when they are trying to overthrow democracy by innovations, — they first of all release all who were formerly by law suffering this penalty for some offence. [207] Does not this man, then, deserve, if possible, not one but three sentences of death, because, standing by himself, and of course with no expectation of crushing you, but rather of meeting his own doom in this court, if you do justice as you ought, he nevertheless imitated that crime, and attempted to release men whom the tribunals have imprisoned, by his impudent enactment that if the penalty of imprisonment has already been inflicted, or if you hereafter inflict it, upon any man, that man shall be discharged from prison? [208] Suppose that in a moment’s time you were to hear an outcry hard by this court, and suppose that you were told that the jail had been thrown open and that the prisoners were escaping, there is not a man, however old or however apathetic, who would not rally to the rescue to the utmost of his power. And if someone came forward and informed you that the man who had let them out was the defendant, he would be incontinently arrested and executed without a hearing. [209] Well, men of Athens, you hold in your power today this man, who has not done that deed in secret, but after beguiling and deceiving you has openly enacted a law that does not merely throw open but demolishes the prison, and that includes in that destruction the courts of justice as well. For of what use are either courts or prisons, if persons sentenced to imprisonment are set free, and if you are to get no benefit from any such sentence henceforward? [210]
You ought also to consider this point, that many Hellenic nations have often resolved by vote to adopt your laws; and in this you take an honorable pride, naturally; for there seems to me to be truth in an observation once made, as we are told, in this court, that all wise men regard laws as the character of the State. Therefore we should take pains that they be accounted as good as possible, and we should punish those who debase and pervert them; for, if they are impaired by your neglect, you will lose that high distinction, and will create an unfavorable reputation for your city. [211] If you are justified in praising Solon and Draco, although you can credit neither of them with any public service except that they enacted beneficial and well-conceived statutes, it is surely right that you should visit men whose enactments are contrary to the spirit of those lawgivers with indignation and chastisement. But as to Timocrates I know that he brought in this law chiefly for his private advantage, because he felt that many of his political acts in your city deserve imprisonment. [212]
I would also like to repeat to you a saying attributed to Solon, when he was prosecuting a man who had carried an undesirable law. We are told that, after stating his other charges, he observed that in all, or nearly all, states there is a law that the penalty for any man who debases the currency is death. He proceeded to ask the jury whether they thought that a just and good law; [213] and when the jury replied that they did, he said that in his opinion money had been invented by private persons for private transactions, but laws were the currency of the State; and therefore if a man debased that currency, and introduced counterfeit, the jury had graver reason to abhor and punish that man than one who debased the currency of private citizens. [214] By way of proof that it is a more heinous crime to debase laws than silver coinage, he added that many states that use without concealment silver alloyed with copper and lead are safe and sound and suffer no harm thereby; but that no nation that uses bad laws or permits the debasement of existing laws has ever escaped the consequence. Now that is the accusation to which Timocrates stands open today, and he may justly receive from you the punishment that is adequate to his guilt. [215]
While, therefore, you should be indignant with every man who brings in shameful and wicked laws, your indignation ought chiefly to be directed against those who vitiate the laws upon which depends the greatness, or the weakness, of the commonwealth. And what are they? The laws that avenge you upon evil-doers, and all the laws that confer certain honors on the well-conducted. [216] If all men alike were zealous to serve the community, because they had become ambitious of the honors and rewards of such service, and if all were to recoil from noxious acts, through fear of the pains and penalties enacted for malefactors, could anything prevent our commonwealth from becoming very great? Does not Athens possess more war galleys than any other Hellenic city? Is she not rich in infantry and cavalry, in revenue, in military positions, in harbors? And how are those possessions preserved and consolidated? By the laws; for they are profitable to the community only so long as our public conduct conforms to the laws. [217] If conditions were reversed, if there were no recompense for the virtuous, if evil-doers were to enjoy all the immunity that Timocrates has sought to enact, what utter confusion would be the natural result! For you may be quite sure that from these possessions that I have enumerated, even if they were twice as great as they now are, you would not then get an atom of advantage. Therefore the defendant is proved to be striving to do you wrong in respect of that law by which punishments are provided for would-be criminals. [218]
For all the reasons I have set before you, it is incumbent upon you to show your resentment, to chastise these men, and to make them an example to others. To be lenient to such offenders, or to convict them and then inflict a light penalty, is to habituate and train the greatest possible number to do you wrong.
AGAINST ARISTOGEITON 1
Translated by A. T. Murray
Gentlemen of the jury, as I sat here for a long time and listened with you to the speech of Lycurgus for the prosecution, I thought it in general an excellent speech; but when I observed him unduly exerting himself, I was surprised that he should not realize that the strength of our case does not really depend on the arguments that he has used or that I am going to use, but on the disposition of each juryman either to be indignant at wickedness or to condone it. [2] For myself, I admit it was our duty to undertake the prosecution and to deliver full speeches in accordance with custom and for your information; but I feel that the case has been already decided by each one of you in his inmost conscience, and that now, if the majority of you are men disposed to admire and protect rascals, all our declamation will be wasted, but if you are disposed to hate them, then this man, please God! shall pay the penalty. [3]