Against Leptines

Then this too, Athenians, demands your consideration—that we must not prove less generous than the Chians in our treatment of our benefactors. For if they, against whom Chabrias carried arms as an enemy, have not now revoked any of their former gifts, but have made ancient services outweigh recent offences, while you, in whose cause he marched against them to his death, so far from honoring him the more on that account, are even going to rob him of part of the reward of his past services, how will you escape the ignominy that you deserve?

Moreover, should the son be robbed of part of his reward, his treatment would be undeserved in view of the fact that no man’s child was ever orphaned through the fault of Chabrias, though he frequently led you in war, but the boy himself has grown up an orphan, just because of his father’s devotion to your cause. For to me he seems truly to have been such a staunch patriot, that though reputed to be the most cautious of commanders, as indeed he was, it was for your sake that he displayed that quality whenever he led you, but for his own sake, when he found himself assigned to the post of danger, he forgot all his caution and preferred to lay down his life rather than tarnish the honors that you had bestowed.

After that, are we to rob the son of those honors which inspired the father to conquer or to die? And what shall we say, men of Athens, when the trophies that he set up as general in your name stand plain for all men to see, but a part of the reward for those trophies is found to have been filched away? Will you not observe, men of Athens, and reflect that today we are not judging the law, to see whether it is suitable or not? It is you who are under examination, to see whether you are suitable persons to receive benefits in the future or whether you are not.

Turn now to the decree passed in honor of Chabrias. Just look and see; it must be somewhere there.[*](This aside is intended to give an air of reality to the published speech. Editors well compare a similar trick in Cicero Verr. 2.4.3.)

There is one thing further that I want to say about Chabrias. You, Athenians, in honoring Iphicrates, honored not only him but also on his account Strabax and Polystratus; and again, when giving your reward to Timotheus, you also for his sake rewarded Clearchus and some others with the citizenship[*](Iphicrates was honored for the defeat of the Spartan mora in the Corinthian War (390), Timotheus for his successful expedition to Corcyra after the battle of Naxos (376). Strabax was presumably a foreign mercenary; Polystratus is mentioned in Dem. 4.24, as a commander of Athenian mercenaries at Corinth. These last two were rewarded for services under the command of Iphicrates. Clearchus cannot be identified with certainty.);

but in the case of Chabrias your honors were for him alone. Now, if at the time when he was receiving his reward, he had claimed that as you had rewarded others for the sake of Iphicrates and Timotheus, so for his sake you should reward some of those men who have actually received the immunity, but to whom our opponents object so strongly that they want all alike to be deprived of it, would you not have granted him that boon? I cannot doubt it.

For his sake you would have rewarded them then; yet now, on their account, will you take away the immunity from Chabrias himself? Why, that is absurd! For it is inconsistent to seem so generous, when the benefits are recent, that you honor not the benefactors only but their friends as well, but, when a short time has elapsed, to take away even the rewards that you have given to the benefactors.[*](The argument seems to be this. Some recipients of immunity obtained similar favors for their friends. Chabrias did not, but he might have done so, and his friends might have been the undeserving persons now enjoying immunity. In this rather hypothetical case, after rewarding the jackals from gratitude to the lion, you now penalize the lion out of contempt for the jackals.)

[The decrees on the honour of Chabrias are read]

So these whose names you have heard, as well as many others, are the men whom you will injure if you do not repeal the law. Just reflect and ponder in your own minds, if any of these men now passed away could somehow come to know of the present proceedings, what just ground they would have for indignation! For if of the deeds that each wrought for your advantage there is to be a judgement based on words, if actions nobly performed by them, unless nobly avowed by us in speech, have been wrought in vain for all their toil, are they not suffering a terrible wrong?

Now, to satisfy you, Athenians, that every argument that we submit to you is based on perfectly just grounds, and that not a single argument is intended to mislead and deceive you, the clerk shall read the law drafted and proposed by us to take the place of the present one, which we contend is mischievous. For our law will show you that we take some care to ensure that you shall be saved from the appearance of a dishonorable act; that if anyone objects to one of the recipients, he can deprive him of his gift, if the objection is sound, after trial in your courts; and also that those whose claim to the gifts none could dispute shall keep them.

And in all this there is nothing new, no innovation of our own; but the old law, transgressed by Leptines, lays down this procedure in legislation, that if a man disapproves of an existing law, he shall bring an indictment against it, but shall himself introduce an alternative, such as he proposes to enact after repeal of the other, and that you, after hearing arguments, shall choose the better law.

For Solon, who imposed this method, did not think it right that while the junior archons, who are appointed by lot to administer the laws, undergo two scrutinies[*](To ascertain whether they were duly qualified by birth, by character, and by wealth.) before entering on office, one in the Council and a second in the law-courts before you, the laws themselves, which regulate their official acts and all other civic duties, should be passed at haphazard to meet some emergency, and should be at once valid without passing a scrutiny.

For in those days, indeed, while they legislated in that way, they kept to the existing laws and were not always proposing new ones; but ever since certain statesmen rose to power and, as I am informed, contrived to get into their own hands the right to initiate legislation at any time and in any way they wished, there are so many contradictory statutes that for a long time you have had to appoint a commission to sort out the contradictory ones;

yet in spite of this the business never comes to an end. Our laws are no better than so many decrees; nay, you will find that the laws which have to be observed in drafting the decrees are later[*](νεώτεροι has been misunderstood and variously emended. Laws ought to be general and permanent, decrees particular and occasional; but there has been such a glut of hasty legislation, since the restoration of the democracy in 403, that many decrees still stand unrepealed after the laws on which they were based have been superseded. For the legislative commission see Introduction.) than the decrees themselves. Not to be content, then, with a bare assertion, but to show you the actual law to which I refer, please take and read the law constituting the original legislative commission.

[The law is read]

You understand, Athenians, the beauty of Solon’s directions for legislating. The first stage is in your courts, before men under oath, where all other ratifications are made; the next is the repeal of the contradictory laws, so that there may be only one law dealing with each subject, and that the plain citizen may not be puzzled by such contradictions and be at a disadvantage compared with those who are acquainted with the whole body of law, but that all may have the same ordinances before them, simple and clear to read and understand.

Moreover, before these proceedings, Solon ordered that the laws should be exposed before the statues of the eponymous heroes[*](The statues of the heroes who gave their names to the ten tribes stood in the Agora near the council-chamber.) and handed in to the town-clerk to recite them at the meetings of the Assembly, so that each of you may hear them more than once and digest them at leisure, and if they are just and expedient, may add them to the statute-book. Now, numerous as those enactments are, Leptines yonder has observed not one of them, for, if he had, I do not think that you would ever have consented to pass his law. We on the other hand, Athenians, have observed them all, and we are submitting a much better and more equitable law than his. You will realize that when you hear it.

Take and read first of all the clauses of his law which we have indicted, and next the clauses we propose to substitute for them. Read.[*](By this, if correct, must be meant the preamble of the amended law, setting forth the objections to the existing law of Leptines. The second law read would be the amendments proposed; and at the end of Dem. 20.97 the whole law as amended is read.)

[The law is read]

These are the parts of the law of Leptines which we arraign as unsatisfactory. Next in order read our proposed amendments. Pray attend, gentlemen of the jury, to these as they are recited. Read.

[The law is read]

Stop there. The laws now in force contain this provision—a capital one, men of Athens, and unambiguous—that all rewards granted by the people shall be valid. Equitable too, by all the powers! So Leptines should not have proposed his own law until he had indicted and repealed this. As it is, neglecting proof of his own violation of the law, he nevertheless proceeded to legislate, in face of the fact that another law proclaims his law indictable for this very offence, namely, for contradicting previous legislation. Here is the very law in question.

[The law is read]

Men of Athens, is not the provision that all rewards granted by the people shall be valid contradicted by the clause that no one shall be immune, no one, that is, of those to whom the people has granted immunity? That is plain enough, at any rate. But it is not so in the alternative law which my friend[*](Apsephion.) here proposes, and which confirms what you have granted, and provides a fair ground of action against those who have imposed upon you, or have subsequently injured you, or are generally undeserving; so that you will thus prevent anyone you please from retaining his grant. Read the law.

[The law is read]

You hear the law, Athenians, and you understand that it enables the deserving to retain their rewards, and those who are judged otherwise to be deprived of any privilege they have unjustly secured; for the future everything is left in your hands, as is right, to grant or to withhold. Now I do not think that Leptines will deny that this law is sound and just, or, if he does, that he will be able to prove it. But perhaps he will try to lead you astray by repeating what he said before the junior archons.[*](At the ἀνάκρισις or preliminary trial.) For he alleged that the publication of this amended law was a mere trick, and that should his own law be repealed, this one would never be passed.

Now, to avoid dispute, I will not press the point that the old law of Solon, in accordance with which the junior archons have notified these amendments to you, clearly enjoins that if the law of Leptines is repealed by your vote, the alternative law shall be valid.[*](We may conjecture that the old law (that if the original statute was condemned, the amendment baecame law ipso facto) had in practice been superseded.) I will pass to another point. Leptines, in saying this, obviously admits that our law is better and fairer than his own, but bases his argument on the way in which it is to be passed.

Now, in the first place, there are many ways open to him, if he wishes, of compelling the amender to introduce his own law. In the next place, Phormio and myself and anyone else he likes to name are prepared to guarantee that we will introduce it. You know there is a law making death the penalty for anyone who breaks his promise to the Assembly or one of the Councils or law-courts. You have our guarantee, our promise. Let the archons record it, and let the matter rest in their hands.