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 eπIXELPTovía was required by the statute. See ante, page 12, note 1. Pabst takes ἐπιψηφίζειν in the same sense nearly as he took ἐπιχειροτονεῖν before. 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 madnessit 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.": 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. 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, |