Against Timocrates

—But in fact he went out of his way to avoid the statutes of tax-farming; and, because Euctemon’s decree did authorize recovery from losers of suits according to those statutes, for that very reason he omitted to add the clause. In that manner, by cancelling the existing punishment of public defaulters without substituting any other, he makes havoc of all our business,—the Assembly, the cavalry, the Council, the sacred funds, the civil revenue. And for that offence, men of Athens, if you are wise men, he will be chastised and treated as he deserves, and so made an example to deter others from bringing in such laws.

Not only, then, does he deprive the court of authority in respect of supplementary payments, offer immunity to defrauders of the State, cripple our national service, and undermine our financial system, but also, by abrogating the penalties imposed by the existing statutes, he has enacted his law for the benefit of swindlers, parricides, and shirkers.