Against Timocrates

If, then, you decline to punish the men before you, in a very little time the People will be in slavery to those beasts of prey. But you may be sure, gentle men of the jury, that, if you are really very angry with them, their ferocity will soon be mitigated. If not, you will have plenty of ruffians to insult you under pretence of patriotic fervor.

Let me now say a word, gentlemen of the jury, about the statute which, as I am informed, he intends to cite as a precedent and which he will claim to have followed in his own proposal. I mean the statute which contains these words: Nor will I imprison any Athenian citizen who offers three sureties taxed in the same class as himself, except any person found guilty of conspiring to betray the city or to subvert popular government, or any tax-farmer or his surety or collector being in default. Listen to my reply.