Against Leptines

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.