nounce the acts of the tyranny to be; at all events, he makes them equally invalid. What then shall we say, men of Athens, if we allow this law to be confirmed? That the tribunals, which under a democratical government are composed of sworn men, commit the same crimes as those which existed under the Thirty? Would not that be shocking? Or that they have given righteous verdicts? If so, what reason shall we assign for passing a law to rescind their judgments?—unless one can say, it was an act of madness— it is impossible to allege any other reason. Read another law. THE LAW. "And it shall not be lawful to propose any statute applying to a particular man,-unless the same be applied to all Athenians, with the sanction of not less than six thousand citizens, who shall so determine by ballot."1 It allows no law to be proposed unless it be the same for all the citizens. Its language is noble and constitutional. For, as every one partakes equally in other political advantages, so in this too the legislator thinks it right to establish equality. On whose account the defendant introduced his law, you see as well as I do : but besides, he himself confessed that he had proposed a law not applying to all, when he inserted a clause excepting from the operation of his law the farmers of taxes and lessees of the revenue and their sureties. When there are persons whom you exclude, you cannot have proposed the same law for all. You can hardly allege As the text now stands, the meaning of the law is as follows:Although a privilegium strictly so called, that is, a law applying to one or more individuals, is not allowable, there may be a privilegium applying to a class, if passed by six thousand citizens voting by ballot. For example, a law could not be passed that Androtion should be released on bail; but a law might (with the requisite assent) be enacted, that a certain class of persons, to whom Androtion belonged, ex. gr. state debtors under sentence of imprisonment, should be released on bail. Some commentators however have thought the text to be corrupt. (See the Apparatus Criticus.) Petit's reading èàv μǹ Ynpioaμévwv makes it agree with Andocides De Mysteriis, 87. (See the Oration against Aristocrates, Vol. iii. page 195.) But who can say whether one or other of the orators does not misquote the law? The text, as it stands, better suits the argument of Demosthenes. If Petit's reading be correct, the orator's objection scarcely applies. 59 this, that of all persons who are condemned to imprisonment the farmers of taxes are the greatest or most heinous offenders, and therefore you excluded them alone from the benefit of the law. For surely those commit much greater offences, who betray any of the public interests, or who ill-use their parents, or who enter without pure hands into the market-place; to all of whom the existing laws denounce imprisonment, while yours gives them a release. But here again you disclose the parties in whose favour you proposed the law: for, because their debt occurred, not from a farming of taxes, but from peculation, or rather from plunder, therefore, I imagine, you did not care about the farmers of the taxes. Many other excellent laws might be cited, to all of which the defendant's law is repugnant. But perhaps, if I touched upon them all, I should be pushed out of the argument, that this law is altogether injurious to the state; and you will equally consider it indictable, if it be repugnant to only one of the existing laws. What course then shall I take? I will pass by the other laws, and-first noticing one which Timocrates himself formerly passed-I will proceed to that part of the accusation, in which I undertake to show that his law, if confirmed, will be highly detrimental to the commonwealth. Now to have introduced a law contrary to the laws of other men, is a grave offence, yet it requires another party for accuser; but for a man to legislate in contradiction to a law passed by himself, this makes him his own accuser. That you may see this is the case, he shall read you the very law which Timocrates proposed; and I will be silent. Read. THE LAW. "Timocrates moved :-If any Athenians, upon an impeachment by the council, either now are in prison, or shall hereafter be put in prison, and their condemnation be not delivered to the judges by the secretary of the presidency, pursuant to the practice upon impeachments, the Eleven shall bring them into court before the judges within thirty days from the day on which they received them in custody, if the state of public business does not prevent it; otherwise, as soon as possible. And any Athenian that pleases, to whom such right belongs, may prosecute. And if the party accused be convicted, the Heliastic tribunal shall impose such penalty, corporal or pecuniary, as they consider him to deserve; and, if sentenced to a pecuniary penalty, he shall be imprisoned until he has paid whatsoever sum he was condemned to pay." Do you hear, men of the jury? Read them the last words again. THE LAW. "And if sentenced to a pecuniary penalty, he shall be imprisoned until he has paid—” Enough. Is it possible to propose two more opposite enactments than these?—that convicted persons shall be kept in prison until they have paid, and that the same persons shall give bail and not be put in prison? Well this charge is brought against Timocrates by Timocrates, not by Diodorus, nor by any other of his countrymen, numerous as they are. But what temptation do you think a man could resist, or what would he scruple to do for lucre's sake, who has thought proper to legislate at variance with himself, when variance even with others is prohibited by law? Such a man, as it appears to me, is impudent enough to do anything. As therefore the laws command, that malefactors of other kinds, who confess, should be punished without trial; so, men of Athens, when you have caught the defendant playing foul tricks with the laws, you ought to find him guilty without allowing him to speak or to be heard: for he has confessed his crime by proposing this law at variance with the other which he passed before. That his law is inconsistent with those just cited, and with those before mentioned, and, I may almost say, with every law of the country, is plain, I imagine, to you all. I wonder, indeed, what he can possibly venture to say upon the point. He will not be able to show that his law is not contrary to the other laws; nor can he persuade you that he overlooked it through inexperience, being no politician; for he has been seen long ago both framing decrees and introducing laws for hire. Nor yet is this course open to him, to confess that the thing is a crime and ask for pardon; for he is shown to have proposed his law not unintentionally, not in behalf of the unfortunate, not for relations and connexions of his own; but intentionally, and in behalf of persons who had grievously injured you, and who were in no way related to him, unless he means to say that he regards his hirers as relations. 68. I shall now proceed to show, that he has introduced a law not suitable or advantageous to the commonwealth. You will all agree, I take it, that a law, to be good and useful to the multitude, should, in the first place, be framed simply and intelligibly to all, and it should be impossible for one man to put this construction upon it, and another that; secondly, what is to be done by virtue of the law should be practicable; for, however well drawn, if it prescribed anything impossible, it would perform the work of a prayer, not of a law. In addition to this, it should plainly appear that it allows no indulgence to wrong-doers. If any one thinks it is a featureof a popular government for the laws to be mild, let him. consider to what persons they should be mild; and, if he takes the right view, he will see they should be mild to persons about to be tried, not to persons who have been convicted; for, in the former case, it is uncertain whether a man has not been unjustly calumniated, whereas the latter can no longer deny that they are rogues. Of the qualities which I have just mentioned, you will see that the law of Timocrates does not possess a single one, but exactly the opposite. This may be shown in many ways, but most clearly by going through the articles of the law itself; for it is not good in one part and faulty in another; but from the beginning, from the first syllable to the last, it is framed entirely to your prejudice. Take the indictment, and read them the statute as far as the first clause. That will be the easiest way for me to show, and for you to catch, what I mean. THE LAW. "In the first presidency, to wit, that of the Pandionian tribe, on the twelfth day thereof, Aristocles of Myrrhinus, of the committee of council, put the question, Timocrates moved: If any of the 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-" Stop. You shall read clause by clause by and by. This, men of the jury, is about the most shameful of all the articles in the statute. I believe no other man, introducing a law for the purpose of its being used by his fellow . citizens, would dare to rescind the judgments which have been pronounced according to the pre-existing laws. Yet Timocrates, the defendant, has done this, impudently and without the least disguise; for he says expressly, "If any of the persons who are indebted to the state has been or shall hereafter be condemned, pursuant to a law or a decree, to suffer the penalty of imprisonment." If he had only advised what was proper with respect to future cases, he would have done no wrong; but to introduce a law to rescind what a court of justice has decided, and what is definitively definitely settled-is not this shameful conduct? As if a man, after You may see in another way, how shamefully he has acted in passing a retrospective law, if you will only reflect what it is that makes law differ from oligarchy, and how it comes about that those who choose to be governed by laws are held to be honest and independent and worthy people, while those who live under oligarchies are unmanly and slavish. You will find this the true and obvious explanation; that, among people who live in oligarchies, every man has the right both to undo what has been done, and to order what 1 That is, there is no law to prevent him. What the orator says is not to be understood (as Schäfer thinks) of the rulers only. Every man has the right, if he can only enforce it. By putting it in this way, the orator makes the contrast between oligarchy and democracy the more striking. In the former there is no law, and therefore no security either for the past or the future. Compare the argument in the Leptinea, Vol. iii. page 9. |