persons who are indebted to the state has been or shall hereafter be condemned, pursuant to a law or to a decree, to suffer the penalty of imprisonment, it shall be lawful for him, or for another person on his behalf, to put in such bail for the debt as the people shall approve, to be security for payment of the sum which he owed, and the committee of council are hereby required to take the votes of the assembly,1 when any one wishes to put in bail; and the person who has given bail, if he pays to the state the money for which he gave the bail, shall be released from imprisonment; but if neither he nor his bail shall have paid the money in the ninth presidency, the party released on bail shall be imprisoned, and the property of the bail shall be confiscated. Provided that, in the case of farmers of the taxes and their sureties and the collectors, and lessees of the leasable revenues and their sureties, the state shall be at liberty to recover her dues according to the established laws. And if any one is indebted in the ninth presidency, he shall pay his debt in the ninth or tenth presidency of the following year."

You have heard the law. Pray remember these parts of it-first, the words "if any of the persons who are indebted has been or shall hereafter be condemned to suffer imprisonment"-next, the clause which excepts from the law the farmers of taxes and lessees of the revenue and their sureties. The whole statute is contrary to all existing statutes, but especially those parts of it, as you will perceive when you hear him read.

Recite the laws to them. Read.

THE LAW.

"Diocles moved: The laws enacted before Euclides2 in the time of the democracy, and such as were enacted in the Archonship of Euclides and are recorded, shall be in force. Those which were enacted after Euclides or shall hereafter be enacted shall come into operation from the days on which they were respectively passed, except where a time is expressly appointed, in whose archonship any law is to commence.

1 Pabst, bestätigen, following Reiske and Schäfer. But then, instead οἱ ὅταν τις καθιστάναι βούληται, one would rather have expected ὅταν ὁ δῆμος χειροτονήσῃ.

2 See my article Nóuos in the Archæological Dictionary.

And the secretary of the council shall affix his mark to the laws which are now established within thirty days; and for the future the secretary for the time being shall immediately annex a clause, that the law shall come into operation from the day on which it was passed."

Admirable as were the existing laws, men of the jury, the § 43 law which has just been read defined (as it were) and confirmed them. For it declares that every one shall come into force from the day when it was passed, except where a date is expressly mentioned, and then it shall commence from the prescribed date. Why so? Because to many statutes a clause had been annexed, "that the act should come into operation in the archonship succeeding the present." The person therefore who afterwards proposed this law which has been read, framing it at a later period, thought it not right that statutes which themselves contained a postponing clause should be carried back to the day of their enactment, and made to come in force before their respective authors desired. See how contrary to this law is the one which the defendant has passed. The one declares, that the prescribed date, or the day of enactment, shall be the starting point: Timocrates inserts a clause, "if any person has been condemned," referring to past transactions; and even this he does not limit, by naming any archonship as the term of commencement, but has made his law come in force not only before the day of its enactment, but before any of us were born; for he has taken in the whole of the past indefinitely. You ought, Timocrates, either never to have framed your law, or to have repealed the other; not to have thrown everything into confusion, to further your own purposes.

Read another law.

THE LAW.

"Nor concerning the disfranchised shall there be any proposal, for restoration of their franchise, nor concerning those who are indebted to the Gods or to the Athenian treasury, for remission of their debts or for a composition, unless permission has been granted by not less than six thousand Athenians, who shall think fit to vote in that behalf by ballot. And then it shall be lawful to make a proposal to that effect, in such manner as seems good to the council and the assembly."

Here is another law, forbidding any speech concerning disfranchised persons or state-debtors, and any proposal for remission of their debts or for composition, unless liberty has been granted, and that by the votes of not less than six thousand persons. The defendant frames an express clause, that, if any debtor has been condemned to imprisonment, he shall have his release upon finding persons to be his bail, without there having been any proposal or any liberty of speech granted in that behalf. And the law, even when a man has obtained permission, does not allow him to proceed as he pleases, but in such manner as the council and the people approve: Timocrates was not content with a simple breach of law, in speaking and introducing a bill upon these matters without leave, but he went further, and, without saying a word upon the subject to the council or the people, introduced a law irregularly and clandestinely, after the council had broken up, and while the rest of the people were taking a holiday on account of the festival. It was your

business, Timocrates, knowing this law which I have read, if you wished to do what was right, first to petition the council for an audience, then to bring the matter before the assembly, and, in the event of all the Athenians giving it their sanction, to draw up and propose your bill; but even then you should have waited the time prescribed by the laws. Proceeding thus, even had any one attempted to show that your bill was injurious to the state, you would at all events have been" thought, not to have any sinister design, but to have erred in judgment only. Now, by your clandestinely and hastily and illegally, I will not say passing, but foisting your law into the statute-book, you have deprived yourself of all excuse; for those are excusable who err unintentionally, not those who have nourished evil designs, as you are plainly shown to have done. However, I will speak of this presently. Now read the next law.

THE LAW.

"If any one petition in the council or in the assembly upon a sentence which has been passed by a court of justice, or by the council, or by the assembly, if it be the party amerced who petitions before he has paid the fine, an information shall lie against him, in the same manner as if any one being

indebted to the treasury sits on a jury; and if another person petition on behalf of the party amerced, before he has paid the fine, all the property of such person shall be confiscated; and if any member of the committee of council allow the question to be put for any one, whether for the party amerced, or for any other person on his behalf, before he has paid the debt, such member shall be disfranchised."

It would be a tedious thing, men of the jury, if I dwelt upon every law to which the defendant's is repugnant; yet if there is any one worth discussion, this one is which he has just read. For the author of this law, men of Athens, knew your humane and lenient disposition, and saw that by reason of it you had on many occasions before then submitted to serious losses. Wishing therefore to leave no excuse for the miscarriage of the public interests, he did not choose that persons who by legal verdict and judgment had been convicted of misconduct should avail themselves of your good nature, and have the advantage of petitioning and supplicating you in their distress; but positively forbade either the party himself or any one else to petition or speak upon such a matter, making it imperative to do justice in silence. If you were asked now, for which persons you would be more likely to do anything, for those who asked a favour, or those who gave a command, I am sure you would say, for those who asked a favour; for this is the part of kind-hearted men, the other that of cowards. Well all laws command what is needful to be done; petitioners ask it as a favour. If then it is forbidden to petition, could it be allowed to introduce a law, which implies command? I should think not. It would be shameful, if, in cases where you have deemed it right to abstain even from acts of grace, the purposes of certain persons might be accomplished against your will. Read the law next in order.

THE LAW.

Concerning matters upon which there has been a judgment in a suit or interpleader, or an account rendered, before a legal tribunal, whether the proceeding has been private or public, and concerning property which the treasury has sold, it shall not be lawful for any of the magistrates to bring a question into court for trial, or put any question to the vote;

nor shall they permit any accusation to be preferred which is forbidden by the laws."

Timocrates, as if he were drawing a deposition to prove his offence, in the very beginning of his law puts a clause contrary to these provisions. The statute cited forbids the reopening of matters which have once been decided by a legal tribunal. Timocrates enacts that, if any one has been condemned in pursuance of a law or a decree, the people shall deal with the matter in his behalf, so that the decision of the tribunal may be repealed, and the amerced party may give bail. And the statute says, no magistrate shall even put a question contrary to these provisions; whereas Timocrates requires the committee of council, if any one puts in bail, to present the bail to the assembly,1 and adds the words, "when any one wishes."

Read another law.

THE LAW.

"All such judgments and awards as have been given in accordance with the laws in the time of the democracy shall be valid."

Timocrates says they shall not; at least in the case of those persons who have been condemned to imprisonment. Read.

THE LAW.

“And all things which have been done under the Thirty, and every judgment which has been given either in public. or in private, shall be null and void."

Stop. Tell me, what would you all say was the most dreadful event you ever heard? What would you most deprecate the repetition of? Surely, the things that were done under the Thirty Tyrants. So at least I should imagine. And this statute, providing (as it appears to me) against such a contingency, declared that everything done in their time should be null and void. The defendant pronounces the acts of the democracy to be just as illegal as you pro

1 I. e. that the bail may be justified; for which purpose the exTovía was required by the statute. See ante, page 12, note 1. Pabst takes ἐπιψηφίζειν in the same sense nearly as he took ἐπιχειροτονεῖν before.