Against Leptines

Now I have been quite seriously informed that with regard to the absolute prohibition of all rewards,[*](Demosthenes here misrepresents the law, which only touched the immunities. Quite seriously is taken by some with prepared to use.) whatever a man’s services may be, our opponents are prepared to use some such argument as this. The Lacedaemonians, who are a well-organized state, and the Thebans grant no such reward to any of their citizens, and yet possibly there are some good men among them. In my opinion, men of Athens, all such arguments are provocative, and intended to persuade you to abolish the immunities, but just they are certainly not. For I am quite aware that the Thebans and the Lacedaemonians and ourselves do not observe the same laws and customs, nor the same form of government.

For in the first place, if this is their argument, they are about to do exactly what a man cannot do at Sparta—praise the laws of Athens or of any other state; nay, so far from that, he is obliged to praise, as well as do, whatever accords with his native constitution. Then again, though the Lacedaemonians do not hold with these customs, yet there are other honors at Sparta, which our citizens to a man would shrink from introducing here.

What, then, are those honors? Not to take each singly, I will describe one which comprises all the rest. Whenever a man for his good conduct is elected to the Senate, or Gerusia, as they call it, he is absolute master of the mass of citizens. For at Sparta the prize of merit is to share with one’s peers the supremacy in the State; but with us the people is supreme, and any other form of supremacy is forbidden by imprecations[*](At the opening of every meeting of the Assembly and of the Council a herald recited a curse on enemies of the State and on evil counsellors; see Dem. 19.70.) and laws and other safeguards, but we have crowns of honor and immunities and free maintenance and similar rewards, which anyone may win, if he is a good citizen.

And both these customs are right enough, the one at Sparta and the other here. Why? Because in an oligarchy harmony is attained by the equality of those who control the State, but the freedom of a democracy is guarded by the rivalry with which good citizens compete for the rewards offered by the people.

Again, with regard to the absence of honors at Thebes, I think I can express the truth thus. The Thebans, men of Athens, plume themselves more on brutality and iniquity than you on humanity and love of justice. If a prayer may be allowed, may they never cease to withhold honor and admiration from those who do them service, or to deal with kindred states in the same way (For you remember how they treated Orchomenus.[*](Wiped out by the Thebans in 364. The men were massacred, and the women and children sold into slavery.)) And never may you cease to do the opposite, honoring your benefactors and winning your rights from your fellow-citizens by debate and in harmony with the laws!

And in general, I think that then only ought you to praise the habits and character of other nations and decry your own, when it is possible to prove that they are more prosperous than you. As long as you (thank Heaven!) are more prosperous than they, in public policy, in internal harmony, and in every other way, why should you belittle your national institutions and imitate theirs? Even if theirs could be proved superior in theory, yet the good fortune that you have enjoyed under your own institutions makes it worth your while to retain them.

Besides all this, if I must say what I think is right, I would put it in this way. It is not right, Athenians, to cite the laws of the Lacedaemonians or of the Thebans in order to undermine the laws established here; it is not right that you should want to put a man to death for transplanting to Athens any of the institutions that have made those nations great, and yet lend a willing ear to those who propose to destroy the institutions under which our democracy has flourished.