Against Androtion

But I must first ask you, men of Athens, to reflect that the question you are sworn to decide is not this, but whether his proposal was in accordance with the laws. Next reflect that it is outrageous in one who charges others with violating the constitution to claim exemption from punishment for his own more serious violations; because it is obviously more serious to propose an unconstitutional decree than to fail to pay the property-tax.

Then even if it were certain that after this man’s conviction no one would pay the tax or be willing to collect it, even so you must not acquit him, as you will see from this consideration. Upon the property-taxes from the archonship of Nausinicus—say three hundred talents or a trifle more[*](This figure is probably corrupt, being too large for a single year, and too small for the twenty-three years from the archonship of Nausinicus (378-377) to the date of this speech.)—you have a deficit of fourteen talents, of which he levied seven; but I am assuming that he levied the whole amount. Now you do not need Androtion to deal with the willing payers, but with the defaulters.

So you have now to consider whether that is the value that you put on the constitution, the existing laws, and your regard for your oath;for if you acquit him, though his proposal was manifestly illegal, everyone will conclude that you have preferred this sum of money to the laws and to your good faith. Why, even if a man gave you this sum out of his own pocket, it would not be worth taking, much less if it has to be exacted from others.

Therefore, when he uses this argument, remember your oath, and reflect that this indictment concerns not the collection of taxes, but the sovereignty of the laws. And as to all this—how he will try to hoodwink you by distracting you from the subject of this law, and what points you must bear in mind so as not to give way to him—though I might say more on these subjects, I will refrain, as I think that this will suffice.

I desire also to subject the politics of this honorable gentleman to a scrutiny, from which it will be clear that he has not stopped short of the utmost limits of depravity; for I shall prove him to be shameless and reckless, a thief and a bully, fit for anything rather than to play a public part in a democracy. And first of all let us examine this levying of taxes, on which he chiefly prides himself. Without paying any attention to his boasts, let us look at the facts in their true light.

He said that Euctemon was retaining your taxes, and he undertook to prove the charge or pay the sum out of his own pocket. On that pretext he got you to vote for the dismissal of an official appointed by lot, and so wormed his way into a collectorship. He delivered sundry harangues on the subject, telling you that you had a choice of three courses, either to break up the sacred plate, or to impose a fresh tax, or to squeeze the money out of the defaulters; and you naturally chose the last.

Having you under his thumb, thanks to his promises, and having liberty of action owing to the state of affairs at the time, he did not think it necessary to employ the existing laws for his purpose, nor to make new laws, if he considered the old ones inadequate; but he proposed in your Assembly monstrous and unconstitutional decrees, by means of which he created a job for himself and has stolen a great deal that belongs to you, putting in a clause that the Eleven should attend on him.

Then, with the Eleven, he led the way to the homes of his fellow-citizens. Against Euctemon he could prove nothing, though he had said that he would get the taxes out of him or pay them himself; but it was from you that he levied them, as if his motive was hostility, not to Euctemon, but to you.

Let no one understand me to say that the money ought not to have been wrung from the defaulters. It ought; but how? Even as the law enjoins, for the benefit of the other citizens. That is the spirit of democracy. For what you, men of Athens, have gained by the exaction of such paltry sums of money in this way, is nothing to what you have lost by the introduction of such habits into political life. If you care to inquire why a man would sooner live under a democracy than under an oligarchy, you will find that most obvious reason is that in a democracy everything is more easy-going.

I shall not, then, trouble to show that the defendant has proved himself more brutal than any oligarchy anywhere in the world. But here, in our own city, at what period were the most outrageous things done? You will all say, Under the Thirty Tyrants. Now under the Thirty, as we are informed, no man forfeited the power to save his life who could hide himself at home; what we denounce the Thirty for is that they arrested men illegally in the market-place. This man displayed a brutality so far in excess of theirs that he, a public man under a democracy, turned every man’s private house into a jail by conducting the Eleven into your homes.

But what do you think of this, Athenians? What if a poor man, or a rich man for that matter who has spent much money and is naturally perhaps rather short of cash, should have to climb over the roof to a neighbor’s house or creep under bed, to avoid being caught and dragged off to jail, or should degrade himself in some other fashion, fit for slaves and not for freemen, and should be seen thus acting by his own wife, whom he espoused as a freeman and a citizen of our state? And what if the cause of all this was Androtion, a man who is debarred by his own conduct and mode of life from seeking redress for himself, much more for the State?

Yet if he were asked whether the taxes are due from our property or from our persons, he would admit, if he cared to speak the truth, that they are due from our property; it is from property that our contributions come. Then why did you drop the sequestration and scheduling of lands and houses, and proceed to imprison and insult Athenian citizens and the unfortunate resident aliens, whom you have treated with more insolence than your own slaves?

Indeed, if you wanted to contrast the slave and the freeman, you would find the most important distinction in the fact that slaves are responsible in person for all offences, while freemen, even in the most unfortunate circumstances, can protect their persons. For it is in the shape of money that in the majority of cases the law must obtain satisfaction from them; but Androtion on the contrary exacted vengeance from their persons, as if they had been bond-slaves.

So corrupt and selfish was his attitude towards you that he thought that his own father, imprisoned by the State for moneys due, had a right to escape, without payment and without trial, but that any other citizen, not having the means to pay, might be dragged from his own home to prison. And then, on the top of all this, as though he could do whatever he liked, he distrained upon Sinope and Phanostrate, who were prostitutes certainly, but owed no property-tax.

Should anyone possibly think that those women were fitting people to suffer, yet assuredly it was not a fitting procedure—that men should be so puffed up by a chance opportunity as to march into houses and carry off the furniture of people who are not in debt. For one could point to many who are and have been fitting persons for such treatment. But surely such is not the language of the statutes or of the principles of the constitution, which it is your duty to uphold. In them we find pity, pardon, everything that becomes free citizens.

To all such feelings the defendant is of course a stranger by birth and breeding. Many are the outrages and insults that he has had to submit to when consorting with men who had no love for him but could pay his price. For such insults, Androtion, it would have been right to vent your spite, not on the next citizen you meet, not on the women who follow your own profession, but on the father who gave you such a bringing up.

Now that these are serious offences, contrary to every statute, he will not be able to deny; but he is so impudent that in the Assembly, contriving always an anticipation of his defence against this indictment, he dared to say that it was in your interests and for your sake that he had drawn down enmity on himself and was now in desperate peril. But I want to prove to you, men of Athens, that he has never suffered, nor is likely to suffer, any inconvenience at all through his services to you, but that for his abominable and monstrous wickedness he has hitherto not paid the penalty, but will pay it now, if you on your part do what is right.

Consider this point. What did he undertake to do for you, and what did you appoint him to do? To collect moneys. Anything else besides? Not a single thing! Very well; I will remind you of the items of his accounts. He collected from Leptines of Coele thirty-four drachmas, from Theoxenus of Alopece seventy drachmas or a trifle more, and from Callicrates, the son of Eupherus, and from the young son of Telestes, whose name I cannot give you—but without going into details, of all those from whom he collected money, I doubt if anyone owed more than a mina.