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fiscated. There was a clause excepting from the operation of the law farmers of the taxes and lessees of the public revenue.

To obtain a repeal of this law and the punishment of its author, Diodorus and Euctemon adopted the means which the Athenian constitution afforded them, and preferred an indictment. They contended, first, that the motives of Timocrates in proposing the law were not to promote the public good, but to serve himself and his private friends; secondly, that the law was intrinsically a bad one, being unconstitutional in its character and mischievous in its tendency; and further, that it had been passed in an illegal manner, the conditions required by the laws of Athens not having been complied with. The orator enters into an elaborate argument to establish these positions, referring to various existing statutes, to which the law in question was repugnant, and showing that it was impossible for it to work well either in a financial or in any other point of view. He also, according to the practice of the Athenian courts, assails the characters of Timocrates and Androtion, avowing that his own personal enmity to the latter was one of the motives which induced him to prosecute. Several passages of the speech against Androtion are here repeated, as the reader will perceive. For information as to the law and other matters illustrative of this speech, the reader is referred to Volume ii. Appendices IV. V. and VII.; Volume iii. Appendix VIII.

The date of the speech was B.C. 353.

TIMOCRATES himself must admit, men of the jury, that he has no one but himself to blame for the present prosecution. For with intent to deprive the state of a considerable sum of money, men of Athens, he introduced a law, in violation of all the existing laws, which was neither proper nor just. In what other respects it will be mischievous and detrimental to the commonwealth, should it be confirmed, you will learn in detail presently from my speech; but the most important point which I have to urge, and that which most obviously suggests itself, I shall not hesitate to declare-it is this. The decision which you give upon oath on every question is rendered null and void by the defendant's law, not to confer any advantage upon the state-that's impossible, when it makes the courts of justice, which are known to be the supports of the constitution, unable to enforce the legal penalties of crime-but in order that some of that clique, who have for a long time been living on you and pillaging you to an enormous extent, may escape refunding even what they are clearly proved to have stolen. And so much easier is it to pay court to certain private individuals, than to stand up for your rights, that the defendant has received

money from those men, and did not introduce this law for them till he got it, whilst I, acting on your behalf, instead of receiving anything from you, run the risk of paying a thousand drachms. It is the practice in general with those who undertake any public matter, to tell you that the subject on which they are addressing you is a most serious one, and peculiarly worthy of your attention. It appears to me that, if any one ever has said this with justice, I may properly say it now. For no one will dispute, I imagine, that for the blessings which the commonwealth enjoys, for her popular constitution and her freedom, she is principally indebted to the laws. Well; this is the very question now before you, whether all the other statutes against public offenders are to be invalidated, and this one to be established, or whether, on the contrary, this is to be repealed, and the others allowed to remain in force. Such (to speak in a short compass) is the matter upon which you have now to decide.

You might wonder perhaps why a person who has lived quietly all the rest of his life (as I believe I have done) is now found engaged in trials and public prosecutions. I am anxious therefore to give you a short explanation, and it will not be irrelevant. You must know, men of Athens, I came into collision with a vile, quarrelsome, abominable fellow, with whom at last the whole city has come into collision; I mean Androtion. I have been injured by him far more grievously than Euctemon has; for Euctemon suffered only pecuniary damage; whereas I, if Androtion had succeeded in his attack, should have been deprived not only of my property, but of my life; nay, even to part with life, which is open to mankind in general, would not have been easy for me. accused me of a thing which a man of right feeling would hardly like even to mention that I had killed my own father: he then got up an indictment for impiety, and brought me to trial: in this, however, he failed to get a fifth part of the votes, and incurred the penalty of the thousand drachms; I obtained my just acquittal, principally through the favour of the Gods, and, under them, through the jury of my country. The man, who had wickedly brought me into such peril, I regarded as an irreconcileable enemy: and seeing that he had done public wrong to the commonwealth, both in the collection of the property tax, and in the manufacture of the

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sacred utensils,1 and that he retained in his possession and refused to pay considerable sums belonging to the Goddess and the heroes and the state, I took proceedings against him in conjunction with Euctemon, thinking I had found a good opportunity at the same time to redress the grievances of the commonwealth and obtain satisfaction for my own. So should I wish now both for myself to accomplish my own objects, and for the defendant to suffer what he deserves. When the facts were beyond all dispute, the council having pronounced sentence of condemnation, the assembly having given a whole day to that single question, and besides this, two tribunals composed of a thousand and one jurors having pronounced their verdict-when there was no longer any pretext for keeping you out of the money-Timocrates the defendant treated all the proceedings with such contempt as to propose this law, by means of which he deprives the Gods of their sacred property and the state of hers, and invalidates the decisions of the council and the assembly and the court of justice, and has enabled any one that pleases to plunder the state with impunity. For all this the only remedy that we can see is, to indict the law, bring it before you, and endeavour to repeal it. I will in a few words explain the transaction to you from the beginning, that you may the more clearly see and comprehend the iniquitous character of the law itself.

Aristophon moved a decree in the assembly, that inquisitors 2 should be appointed, and that, whoever knew of any one having in his possession any sacred or public property of the state, should give information to them. After this Euctemon gave information, that Archebius and Lysithides, who had been trierarchs, had in their possession the proceeds of a cargo from Naucratis, estimated at nine talents and thirty minas. He communicated with the council; an order of council was drawn up; an assembly was thereupon held, and the people voted for a hearing of the question. Euctemon got up, and explained in the course of his speech, how the ship was taken by the trireme which carried Melanopus and Glaucetes and Androtion on their embassy to Mausolus; how the people to whom the cargo belonged presented their peti

1 See the Oration against Androtion, Vol. iii. page 160.
See Vol. iii. Appendix VIII. page 341.

tion,1 and how you rejected it on the ground that the cargo was not friendly. He then reminded you and read the laws, which declare that in such a case the property must be confiscated. You all thought that what he said was just. Androtion, Glaucetes, and Melanopus jumped up, and (pray watch if I am speaking the truth) they poured out a torrent of complaint and abuse, exonerated the trierarchs, confessed that they had the money themselves, and desired that the inquisition should proceed against them. You heard what they said, and, as soon as they had done bawling, Euctemon advised—nothing could be fairer-that you should get the money from the trierarchs, and they should have recourse to the persons who had it, and, if there was any dispute, you should direct an interpleader, and the party who lost the verdict should be deemed the state-debtor. They indict the decree; it came into court; to cut the matter short, it was considered to have been moved legally, and the verdict was in its favour. What then ought to have been done? The state should have had the money, and the party defrauding her should have been punished, and surely there was no occasion for any law. Well; up to this point, you had sustained no injury from Timocrates, the present defendant. Subsequently, however, he took everything which I have mentioned upon himself, and it will appear that you have been injured solely by him; for by lending himself to the artifices and trickeries of those other men, and making himself their tool, he took their guilt upon his own shoulders, as I will show you clearly. I must first remind you of the dates, and the occasion upon which he proposes his law; for it will appear that he has treated you with mockery and insult. It was the month of Scirophorion when those men were beaten in their indictment of Euctemon : hiring then the present defendant, and not being even in a condition to do justice to you, they put some tattling fellows in the marketplace to say, that they were ready to pay the single surn, but would not be able to pay the double. This was an impudent conspiracy, a contrivance that the present law might be passed without observation. The fact itself proves my assertion for they did not pay you at that time a drachm of

1 The owner of the goods placed a bough, as the symbol of petition, upon the altar, which stood at the entrance of the theatre.

the money, while by a single law they nullified a plurality of existing laws, and by a law which, of all that ever were passed before you, is the most shameful and scandalous.

I have something to say about the statutes, which allow indictments of this kind, and then I will proceed to the law itself which I have indicted: when you have heard these explanations, you will be in a better position to understand the rest of the case. In our existing laws, men of Athens, is clearly and accurately defined everything which is required. to be done for laws about to be enacted. And first of all, a time is specified at which laws must be proposed; and even then it is not allowed to be done in what manner the individual proposer pleases, but he is directed first to write out his law, and put it up before the statues of the Heroes, that every man may have an opportunity of seeing it, and he is required also to propose the same law for all, and further, to repeal those laws which are inconsistent with it; and there are other directions, which there seems no necessity to advert to now. If a man violates any one of these, the lawgiver allows, any other person to indict him. If Timocrates had not offended in all these particulars, if he had not violated all these conditions in introducing his law, one would have preferred a single accusation against him, whatever that might have been. As it is, however, I must take the charges one by one, and speak separately of each. I will begin with his first offence, and show how he attempted to legislate in violation of all the existing laws; after that, I will take the other parts of the case in what order you like. Here-take these statutes and read them. It will appear that he has complied with none of these requisitions. Attend, men of the jury, to the laws while they are read.

REVISION OF LAWS.

"In the first presidency, on the eleventh day, in the assembly, when the crier has pronounced the prayer, the votes of the people shall be taken upon the laws, first, those which concern the council, next, the general laws, then those which are enacted for the nine archons, afterwards those relating to the other magistrates. The first question shall be, Who are content with the existing laws concerning the council? the next, Who are not content? and so on for the

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