officer elected by lot,1 and so crept into the collection. At the same time, on the plea of ill health, he proposed the appointment of the defendant, "to help him" (as he said) "in managing the business." He harangued you upon the occasion, saying that you had the choice of three courses, either to break up your sacred vessels, or to have a new property tax, or to levy the arrears from those who had not paid; and, as you naturally preferred to levy the arrears, and as he had won you over by his promises, and had a license under the peculiar circumstances, he did not choose to act in this matter under the existing laws, or (if he thought them insufficient) to pass new ones, but moved illegal and shameful decrees in the assembly, by means of which he made jobs for his private benefit, using the defendant as the instrument of his gains. And with the defendant's assistance he has largely plundered you, having a clause in the decree that the Eleven and the receivers and officers should accompany him. Attended by them, he led the way to your houses. And you, Timocrates, went with him, you alone of all his ten colleagues. Don't understand me to say, that payment ought not to have been required from the defaulters. It ought but how? As the law prescribes, for the good of the people at large: that accords with the principles of democracy. You have not been so much benefited, O Athenians, by the receipt of the five talents which these men then collected, as you have been injured by the introduction of such practices into the government. If you will only inquire why people would rather live under a democracy than under an oligarchy, you will find the most obvious reason to be this, that everything is milder under a democracy. That these men did things far more shameful and outrageous than any oligarchy in the world, I need not mention: but let me ask-When have the most shameful things been done in our commonwealth? I am sure you will say, in the time of the Thirty. Yet then, we are told, no one was deprived of safety, who could conceal himself at home; but the Thirty are reproached specially for this, that they took people unlawfully to prison from the market-place. These persons went far beyond them in atrocity; for, being statesmen in a popular government, they converted every private house into a prison, 1 See the speech against Androtion, Vol. iii. page 154.

taking to your houses the Eleven. What think ye of this, men of the jury, that a poor man, or even a rich one who had been at great expense and perhaps for some reason or other was out of cash, should not only be afraid to enter the market-place, but deem it unsafe even to stay at home, and that Androtion should be the cause of this, Androtion, who, on account of his life and conduct, is forbidden to sue for justice on his own behalf, much more to levy property taxes for the state? If he, or you, Timocrates, who aided and abetted these proceedings, were asked, whether the property or the person is answerable for taxes, you would say the property, if you meant to speak truth; for it is from property that we contribute. Why then, O ye basest of mankind, instead of sequestering lands and houses and scheduling them, did ye imprison and insult members of the commonwealth and the poor resident aliens, whom you treated with more insolence than your own servants? If you will only reflect, men of the jury, what is the difference between being a slave and a freeman, you will find this to be the chief distinction, that with slaves the person is responsible for all offences, while with freemen it is the last thing that ought to suffer punishment. These men took a contrary view; they inflicted corporal punishment on people, as if they were bondsmen. And on such unfair and selfish principles did Androtion act towards you, that, while he allowed his father, who was in prison for a public debt, to run away without payment or trial, he thought that any other citizen who could not pay taxes out of his own property ought to be taken by himself to prison and incarcerated. And Timocrates, when he was levying the double, would not have taken bail from one of us common folk, I won't say till the ninth presidency, but for a single day: no; we must either have paid him the debt, or have been instantly imprisoned; and he delivered to the Eleven people who had not been condemned in court. Yet now he has ventured at his own peril to introduce a law, that

persons on whom you have passed sentence may go about freely.

However, they will say that both on that and on the present occasion they acted for your good. Will you then admit that such things have been done for your good, and will you quietly endure their acts of audacity and wickedYou ought, men of Athens, to detest such persons

ness?

rather than have mercy on them. He that acts in any way for the commonwealth, and would experience your clemency, should be shown to have the spirit of the commonwealth. What is that? To compassionate the weak, repress the inso lence of the strong and powerful; not to treat the multitude with cruelty and flatter those who appear from time to time to possess influence, as you do, Timocrates; and therefore the jury ought rather to shut their ears against you and condemn you to death, than acquit you for the sake of Androtion.

That they have not even made these levies for your benefit, I will pretty quickly show you. If they were asked, who (in their opinion) do the greater injury to the state, those who farm and live frugally, but through their having to maintain children, through domestic expenses and other public burdens, are in arrear with the property tax, or those who plunder and waste the means of people willing to pay the tax and the contributions of your allies, surely with all their impudence they would not be bold enough to say, that men who do not contribute their own money commit greater crime than men who steal that of the public. How comes it then, Timocrates and Androtion, when it is more than thirty years since one of you commenced his political career, and in that period many generals have wronged the republic, and many orators too, who have been tried before your countrymen, and some of whom have suffered death for their crimes, while others withdrew into exile, which was an act of self-condemnationhow comes it that neither of you ever appeared as the accuser of any of them, or ever was seen to express indignation at the wrongs of the state, and yet you have displayed a zeal for our interests upon an occasion where it was necessary to illuse so many people? Would you like me to tell you the reason, men of Athens? It is because they share in the wrong which is done you by certain persons, while they embezzled a portion of the taxes which were levied; and so insatiable is their avarice, they make a double profit of the commonwealth. For it is not more agreeable to quarrel with a large number of petty offenders than with a small number of great ones, and surely it is not more like a friend of the people to notice the crimes of the many than those of the few. But the reason is what I tell you.

and every crown, though it be small, has the same glory in it as a large one, whereas, although cups and censers, if exceed ingly numerous, gild the possessors with a show of opulence, yet if a man prides himself upon small matters, so far from his obtaining honour on that account, he is thought to be vulgar-minded. This man however has destroyed the possessions of honour, and made those of wealth insignificant and unworthy of you. And he did not even see, that Athenians were never anxious for the acquirement of riches, but for that of renown were more ambitious than for anything in the world. Here is a proof. They once possessed greater wealth than any of the Greeks, but to win renown they expended it all, and, contributing out of their private means, they never shrank from any peril in the pursuit of glory. From which they have acquired for themselves imperishable treasures, partly the remembrance of their achieve ments, partly the splendour of the sacred edifices raised to commemorate them, yonder gateway, the Parthenon, docks and porticoes, not a pair of little jars, or three or four golden saucers, each weighing a mina, which, when you please, you will frame another decree to melt down. Not by levying tithes upon themselves, not by doing what their enemies would pray for, doubling the taxes, did they raise ? these sacred ornaments: not by the help of such counsellors as you did they carry on the government: but by overcoming their enemies, doing what every prudent man would wish them to do, uniting the people in harmony, while they expelled from the market-place men that led such lives as you, they have left behind them a fame that will never die. But you, my countrymen, are so far gone in thoughtlessness and folly, that, even with such examples before your eyes, you will not follow them: but Androtion is repairer of your sacred utensils; Androtion, O earth and heaven! And can any impiety, think ye, surpass this? I look upon it, that a man who is to enter the sanctuaries, to touch the baskets and holy water and superintend the service of religion, ought not to be pure for a stated number of days only, but to have been pure all his lifetime from the practices in which this man's life has been passed.

And of these things by and by. As to his intended defence of Timocrates, though I have a good deal more yet to say, I

is just for the property-tax, namely, that the state should not trust you, but her own servants, when it appears that in another affair, in the alteration of sacred properties, some of which were not consecrated even in our own generation, you did not introduce the same protective clause which you did in the case of the taxes, are not your motives obvious? I should imagine so.

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Again, men of Athens, look to futurity, and see what glorious and admirable public inscriptions he destroyed, and what impious and shameful ones he has written in their place. You must all have seen these inscriptions under the rings of the crowns— The allies crown the people of Athens for valour and justice;" or, "The allies present as the prize of victory to Pallas ;" or, naming the particular states, "Such and such a people crown the Athenians, having been saved by the Athenians"-as, for example, there was inscribed somewhere, The Euboeans having been delivered crown the Athenians"-and again, "Conon, from the sea-fight with the Lacedemonians.", Such were the inscriptions upon the crowns. These, which for you were themes of honour and emulation, by the destruction of the crowns have disappeared: and on the plates, which this impure wretch ordered to be made in their stead, is inscribed, "By the care of Androtion." Yes! though for the crime of impudicity the laws forbid him to enter the temples, his name is in the temples engraved upon the plates. Like the former inscriptions-is it not?-and a theme of equal glory for you!

One may see therefore, three of the most disgraceful things have been accomplished by them. The Goddess they have despoiled of her crowns: in the state they have extinguished an emulation fostered by deeds, of which the crowns while they existed were a memorial: the dedicators they have robbed of no small honour, the credit of being grateful for obligations. Yet after doing all this quantity of mischief, they are so hardened and audacious, that they mention these things as creditable acts of administration; and the one imagines that through his friend he shall be spared by you, while the other sits by and does not sink for shame at his performances. And he is not only so shameless in regard to money matters, but so stupid as not to know that crowns are a sign of merit, plates and the like are tokens of wealth,