Against Timocrates

But as matters stand you must accept these facts as proving that imprisonment is lawful, otherwise penal sentences would at once have been entirely inoperative. In the second place, gentlemen of the jury, the formula, I will not imprison any Athenian citizen, is not in itself a statute; it is merely a phrase in the written oath taken by the Council, to prevent politicians who are in the Council from caballing to commit any citizen to prison.

Solon therefore, wishing to deprive the Council of authority to imprison, included this formula in the Councillors’ oath; but he did not include it in the judicial oath. He thought it right that a Court of Justice should have unlimited authority, and that the convicted criminal should submit to any punishment ordered by the court. To make good this view the clerk will read the judicial oath of the Court of Heliaea. Read.