Against Theocrines

For my part I hold that it is absolutely your duty, men of the jury, to fix your attention on the matter at issue and on nothing else, and then, if my plea seems to you just and in accordance with law, to give me your support, caring nothing for the fact that it is not Demosthenes who prefers the charges, but a mere stripling. You are bound also to hold that the laws are not more binding when one presents them to you carefully in rhetorical language than when they are recited in the speech of every day. No; they are the same laws; and you should all the more readily give aid to the young and inexperienced, since they are less likely to lead you astray.

For that the case is the exact opposite of what my opponent asserts,—that it is not he, but I, who am the victim of a cabal, and that, after certain persons had declared that they would aid me in my suit, I have been betrayed because of the cliques formed by these men,—all this will be made clear to you in the following way. Let the crier here call Demosthenes. He will not come forward. The reason is, not that I have been induced by certain persons to lodge criminal information against this man, but that he and the one just now mentioned have come to terms with one another. To prove that this is true, I will compel to testify both Cleinomachus, who brought them together, and Eubulides, who was with them in Cynosarges[*](A gymnasium in Athens which was a common place of rendezvous.);

and I will further produce what you will all acknowledge when you have heard it, to be, not a weaker, but a stronger proof that my statement is true. For Theocrines here, when prosecuting for illegal action this abominable person, as he will presently call him, and the one who is the cause of his present troubles, openly discharged him from the indictment, in which he had fixed the penalty at ten talents. How? By doing nothing startling, but the very thing that others of his stamp have done. When the indictment was called, someone filed an affidavit for postponement, declaring that Demosthenes was ill—Demosthenes, who was going about and abusing Aeschines. This enemy of his, then, this fellow has let off, and he neither at the time filed a counter-affidavit, nor did he subsequently call the case for trial. Are not these men manifestly hoodwinking you, when you entertain the idea that they are personal foes?

(To the clerk.) Read the depositions.

The Depositions

It is not right, then, men of the jury, that you any more than we should listen to those who will declare that they are going to speak in the interest of Theocrines because of their enmity to Demosthenes. No; if they are in truth enemies of Demosthenes, you should bid them bring their indictments against him, and not permit him to propose illegal decrees. These people too are clever, and you are more apt to give them credence. They will not, however, take the course which I mention. For what reason? Because they claim to be at war with one another, although they are not at war.

With reference to the enmity of these people you could give me more exact information than I can give you. I should be glad, however, to ask Theocrines in your presence, if only he would give me an honest answer, what he would have done—he who declares that he has been assigned the duty of putting a stop to the proposers of illegal decrees—if anyone, after speaking to the whole body of citizens in the assembly and winning their assent, had proposed a decree, permitting those who had lost their civic rights and those indebted to the public treasury to indict, denounce, and lodge criminal informations—in a word to do all the things which the law now forbids them to do—

would he have indicted for illegality the one who proposed that decree, or would he not? If he says he would not, how can you believe him when he states that he is on the watch for those who propose illegal decrees? And if he would have brought in an indictment, is it not an outrageous thing, that when another proposed the bill, he should prevent its being finally enacted, to the end that all should not have this privilege, and should put a stop to the matter by preferring an indictment, plainly writing by its side the words of the laws;

and yet should now, without having won the people’s consent or made the matter public, himself continue to prefer indictments, when the laws forbid him to do so? And he will say presently that he is being abominably treated if he is not to be allowed to continue to do this, and will rehearse the penalties provided by the laws, to which he will be liable, if convicted. Is it not an outrage that he should flout the laws, but claim that there has been granted to him by you a privilege so great that no one else has dared even to ask for it?

That in regard to the criminal information, therefore, neither Theocrines nor anyone of those who speak in his behalf will have any just argument to advance, I take it you are all pretty well assured. I fancy, however, that they will try to maintain that criminal informations may not be lodged against those who are not registered on the Acropolis,[*](The names of those who were debtors to the state were inscribed on pillars set up in the Acropolis.) and that it is not right to consider those as debtors whose names no one has given over to the collectors,

just as though you were unaware of the law which declares a man a debtor from the day on which the penalty has been imposed or on which he has transgressed the law or the decree; or as if it were not clear to everybody that there are many ways in which people who wish to obey the laws become debtors to the treasury and meet the obligation. This is plain from the law itself.

(To the clerk.) Take this law again, please.

The Law

Do you hear, you abominable beast, what the statute says? From the day on which the penalty shall be imposed or on which he transgresses the law.

I hear that they are going to produce also that law which ordains that, in the interest of those who are inscribed on the register, whatever portion of the debt be paid shall be erased, and they will ask how men are to make erasures, when the debt has not even been entered on the register; as if you did not know that this statute has to do with debtors who are registered, while to those who are not registered but owe money that other law applies, which declares that one is a debtor from the day on which the penalty is incurred or on which he transgresses the law or the decree.

Why, then, he will ask, do you not indict me for non-insertion in the register, seeing that I am a debtor, and not registered? Because the law ordains that indictments for non-insertion shall be lodged, not against those who are debtors and not registered, but against those who, although they have been registered and have not paid their debt, nevertheless have their names erased.

(To the clerk.) Take the law, please, and read it.

The Law

You hear the law, men of the jury, hear that it expressly declares that, if any one of those indebted to the treasury shall have his name erased without having discharged his debt to the state, an indictment for non-insertion in the register may be brought against him before the Thesmothetae, but not against a debtor who has not been registered. Against persons of this class it ordains that there shall be a criminal information and other legal penalties. But why do you, Theocrines, try to teach me all the ways in which one may avenge oneself upon one’s enemies, instead of making a defence in the action in which you have come into court?

Moerocles,[*](We know nothing more of Moerocles and his decree than is told in this oration.) men of the jury, who proposed the decree against those who injure merchants, and who persuaded, not you alone, but your allies as well, to organize a sort of police to repress the wrongdoers, will not be ashamed presently on behalf of Theocrines to speak in opposition to his own decree.

On the contrary, he will have the audacity to advise you that you ought not to punish, but to acquit, the one who has thus manifestly been convicted of lodging false denunciations against the merchants; as if his measures for purging the sea had no other purpose than that voyagers who had come safely through the dangers of the open sea might pay money to these people in the harbor; or as if it were any advantage to the merchants that, after completing a long voyage without mishap, they should fall into the hands of Theocrines.

For my part, I think that, while the generals and those in command of your ships of war, and not you, are to blame for mishaps which occur during a voyage, yet for mishaps in the Peiraeus and before the magistrates you are to blame, since you have all these persons under your control. Wherefore it is even more necessary to watch those who transgress the laws here at home than those who fail to abide by your decrees abroad, in order that you may not yourselves be thought to look with complaisance upon what is going on and in a measure to connive at the doings of these men.

For surely, Moerocles, we are not now going to exact ten talents from the Melians[*](Melos, an island in the southern Aegean.) in accordance with the terms of your decree, because they gave harborage to the pirates, and yet suffer this man to go free who has transgressed both your decree and the laws which maintain our state. And shall we prevent from wrongdoing the islanders, against whom we must man our ships in order to hold them to their duty, but you abominable creatures, upon whom these jurymen should inflict the penalty according to the laws, while they sit right here—shall we let you go? (To the jury.) You will not, at least if you are wise.

(To the clerk.) Read the stelê.[*](The marble slab upon which the decree was inscribed.)

The Stele

Regarding the laws, then, and the case before you I do not know what need there is to say more; for, I take it, you have been adequately informed. It is my purpose, after begging justice at your hands for my father and myself, to come down from the platform and trouble you no further. I felt, men of the jury, that it was my duty to come to my father’s aid, and I thought that this course was just;

so I lodged this criminal information, as I told you at the outset, although I knew well that those who wished to calumniate me would find words which would fling reproach upon my youth, while others would praise me and hold that I was acting wisely in seeking to take vengeance on the enemy of my father. However, I knew that, while the effect on my hearers would be as fortune might determine, I was none the less in duty bound to carry out the command laid upon me by my father, especially as it was a just one.

For when, pray, should I come to his aid? Should it not be now, when the opportunity of avenging him in accordance with the laws is open to me, when I myself share in my father’s misfortune, and he has been left desolate? This is precisely what has now come about. For, in addition to our other misfortunes, men of the jury, this too has befallen us: everybody urges us on, expresses sympathy for what has happened, says that we have been outrageously treated, and that the defendant is liable to the criminal information; yet no one of those who say these things is willing to cooperate with us or declares his readiness openly to incur the enmity of Theocrines. So true is it that with some people the love of right is not strong enough to lead them to speak out frankly.

And, men of the jury, while many misfortunes have befallen us in a short period of time because of this fellow Theocrines, no one of them is more grievous than the present one, that, namely, my father, to whom the wrong was done and who could set forth to you the cruel and illegal acts of Theocrines, must keep silent (for the laws so bid), and I, who am unequal to all these tasks, must I do the talking; and whereas other youths of my age are aided by their fathers, my father now rests his hopes on me.