On the Crown

Read first the decree, for which I was indicted and tried, and then the schedules as compiled under the old statute under my statute.

(The Decree is read)

In the archonship of Polycles, on the sixteenth of the month Boëdromion, the tribe Hippothontis holding the presidency, Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, introduced a bill to amend the former law constituting the syndicates for the equipment of triremes. The bill was passed by the Council and the People, and Patrocles of Phlya indicted Demosthenes for a breach of the constitution, and, not obtaining the required proportion of votes, paid the fee of five hundred drachmas.

Now read that fine schedule.

(The Old Schedule is read)

The trierarchs to be called up, sixteen for each trireme, from the associations of joint contributors, from the age of twenty-five to that of forty, paying equal contributions to the public service.

Now read for comparison the schedule under my statute.

(The New Schedule is read)

The trierarchs to be chosen according to the assessment of their property at ten talents to a trireme; if the property be assessed above that sum, the public service shall be fixed proportionately up to three triremes and a tender. The same proportion shall be observed where those whose property is under ten talents form a syndicate to make up that sum.

Do you think it was a trifling relief I gave to the poor, or a trifling sum that the rich would have spent to escape their obligation? I pride myself not only on my refusal of compromise and on my acquittal, but also on having enacted a beneficial law and proved it such by experience. During the whole war, while the squadrons were organized under my regulations, no trierarch made petition as aggrieved, or appeared as a suppliant in the dockyard temple,[*](dockyard temple: lit. temple of (Artemis) Munichia: the Bluejackets’ Church at Peiraeus.) or was imprisoned by the Admiralty, and no ship was either abandoned at sea and lost to the state, or left in harbor as unseaworthy.

Such incidents were frequent under the old regulations, because the public services fell upon poor men, and impossible demands were often made. I transferred the naval obligations from needy to well-to-do people, and so the duty was always discharged. I also claim credit for the very fact that all the measures I adopted brought renown and distinction and strength to the city, and that no measure of mine was invidious, or vexatious, or spiteful, or shabby and unworthy of Athens.