Against Timocrates

I think that you will easily be convinced that this law upsets the constitution, throws public business into confusion, and denudes the commonwealth of many honorable ambitions. For you cannot be unconscious that our city has often owed her safety to the warlike adventures of our navy and our land forces; and that you have frequently performed glorious achievements in the deliverance, or the chastisement, or the reconciliation, of other cities. What do I infer?

Such successes could only have been organized by the aid of those decrees and laws under which you levy contributions on some citizens, and require others to furnish war-galleys; bid some to serve in the navy, and others to perform their several duties. With that object, therefore, you impanel juries, and punish the insubordinate with imprisonment. Now mark how this gallant gentleman’s statute vitiates and makes havoc of all that business.